Bloomberg responsible for unnecessary goose slaughter

From the NY Times:

Five weeks after wildlife authorities rounded up Prospect Park’s geese and gassed them, provoking the ire of residents and wildlife advocates alike, legions of new, death-defying geese continue to move into the prime real estate that is Prospect Park Lake.

Anne-Katrin Titze and Ed Bahlman, Brooklyn residents who discovered the birds’ disappearance last month, counted 107 geese on Prospect Park Lake on Sunday. “They are clearly replacing the ones that were killed,” Ms. Titze said, although she lamented that some had already fallen prey to barbed lures and fishing line that were left in the lake.

The 107 geese have their flight feathers, Ms. Titze noted, and were slowly learning the ways of the park.

From the Courier-Life:

Federal Wildlife Services: How far outside the airport?

U.S. Department of Agriculture: A five-mile radius is sensible, not further than five miles.

Kim Wagner of Wildlife Services: Geese will be hardest to control in parks. [There is] an emotional issue. [We] need to know how to handle [it].

Department of Environmental Protection: According to the Federal Aviation Administration in previous … meetings, five miles is just a number. The liability issue can extend 30 miles [and] influence any large area.

USDA: No additional studies will occur. … [We] need to pick a distance.

DEP: [Can we] put to rest the five-mile limit? [We are] not satisfied.

Port Authority of NY and NJ: Five miles is a huge area to manage.

Jamaica Bay representative: Five miles is good.

And also from Courier-Life:

The blood is on the city’s hands.

New documents revealed this week that city officials pushed for a “no-fly zone” for geese far wider than a five-mile radius from airports suggested by federal officials — even discussing the need for a 30-mile kill zone.

The minutes from the Nov. 15, 2006, meeting of the Bird Hazard Task Force — the team that would later approve the controversial, middle-of-the-night massacre of geese in Prospect Park this summer — reveal a vigorous debate among various city, state and federal agencies about just how far they would go to ensure that airplanes would not collide with geese.

“A five-mile radius is sensible, not further than five miles,” a representative from the U.S. Department of Agriculture said at the meeting, according to the minutes, which we obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request. The minutes typically only provide the name of the agency speaking during the conversation, not the speaker.

But then a representative of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection said that a five-mile radius is simply not adequate.

“Five miles is just a number,” the representative said. “The liability issue can extend 30 miles.”

Later, the speaker added, “[Can we] put to rest the five-mile limit? [We’re] not satisfied.”

The minutes reveal that even prior to the so-called Miracle on the Hudson splash landing on the Hudson River last year, the city wanted to kill far more geese than other government agencies sought.