NYC to gas 2,000 geese, page 4

reply to post by Sonya610

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Inspired by your posts I decided to learn more about these birds, and discovered traits in these animals that would be highly admirable in humans.

They are beautiful birds, and seems to possess human like compassion among other things including monogamy which you spoke of.

www.uft.org... (pdf file)

From the above link.

The Canada geese that we see in New York have most likely come from either the Ungava Peninsula or the Hudson Bay areas in northern Canada. These areas get very cold in the winter, so the geese cannot stay there all year long. They can only be there when the weather is warm and that’s not for too long. After they spend the winter here in New York and other states that have a warmer climate, they migrate back home to the north to nest and raise their young.

This is particularly interesting...

Some have observed that when a goose gets sick, wounded or shot down, a few other geese will drop out of the V-formation to follow the bird down. They help and protect the injured bird. They stay with the goose until he or she dies or is able to fly again. Then, they take off with another V-formation or catch up with their own flock.

Just another stupid animal?

A mother goose will lay about five eggs and she will sit on the eggs to keep them warm until they start to hatch. No matter how cold or hot it is, she will stay with those eggs. One goose, who was caught in a late snowstorm, was seen sitting on her nest even though she was up to her beak in snow!

Adoption?

Sometimes you will see a mom with many goslings, but she has most likely adopted the goslings of other moms who have been killed by cars, hunters, natural predators, or vandals.

A couple of pictures of these invasive evil birds who threaten flying humans...

This will give you an idea of how the gassing of geese in NYC will go when it happens....

Eight men, a pickup truck, a kayak and a van containing a portable gas chamber arrive at a suburban pond in Olney, Maryland. It's 7 a.m. on July 1, just three days before Americans celebrate their Independence Day. The men are not here to liberate anyone.

Their presence, however, has attracted residents from the condominiums that overlook the pond, as well as residents from nearby homes. The residents have a look of shock and horror on their faces as the men herd the Canada geese into a small, makeshift pen, where the birds promptly cower in the corner, seemingly aware of their fate. The birds can't fly away because it's their molting period, that time when geese grow their new feathers and cannot fly.

One by one, the geese are lifted out of the pen, honking and flapping in protest, their elegant black necks contorted into fearful shapes. The men stolidly push the birds into the van's gas chamber, where the geese will meet their ignoble end. The youngest geese are the first to go.

As the gas chamber is filled, onlookers standing several yards away can hear the geese banging and thumping, trying to escape. With all the ceremony of taking out the trash, the dead geese are dumped in plastic bags and piled into the back of the pickup to make room in the gas chamber for more birds.

It is all over by 9 a.m. Only a handful of geese have escaped this death sentence. Those lucky survivors benefited from a dark numbers game. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit for this kill set the death count at 100.

More here: Source

If you really need to know more.


[edit on 12-6-2009 by Walkswithfish]

reply to post by Walkswithfish

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Ugh that was horrible. The Geese at my office park always made their next in the fountain area, and everyone would watch the mother sit on the eggs for 3 weeks until they hatched and went down to the pond near the building.

For 3 years we watched the babies with binoculars as they grew up and then flew off, and the following year it was always exciting to see some of the babies come back to raise their own families there.

I guess with large numbers of geese people see them as impersonal and disposable, but I can assure you if anyone had tried to harm those geese there would been a HUGE outcry because they had become individuals to us.

That news article you posted was upsetting. I wish I had not read it.

reply to post by Sonya610

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I am sorry, but I believe that beyond all of the discussion here it was necessary to know how this would happen, and it is important I believe in understanding the original news story, particularly what will actually happen to these defenseless birds when the time comes to be sacrificed so that we can fly.

[edit on 12-6-2009 by Walkswithfish]

reply to post by Walkswithfish

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Yes, it was necessary to read. Thank you. Perhaps we should be gassing the REAL invasive species; perhaps that would be more savory to the people who would waste these creatures for the empty promise of preventing aircraft intake.

I can't tell you which option sickens me more.

reply to post by Johnmike

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That's right Johnmike. Killing and EATING, no more and no less than required for survival, thus insuring the survival of the food source.

Not gassing like trash and tossing into a dump. Gassing sounds so purty n' humane, doesn't it? It's not.

Humane. What a misnomer that word is. That the gassing was the first solution doesn't surprise me. We are what we are -- selfish and thoughtless creatures. That it was apparently the final solution does surprise me.

I wasn't, by the way, espousing gassing humans, I was using hyperbole to make a point. If it made anyone think for a second, then I'm glad I said it.

Originally posted by Walkswithfish
This will give you an idea of how the gassing of geese in NYC will go when it happens....

Eight men, a pickup truck, a kayak and a van containing a portable gas chamber arrive at a suburban pond in Olney, Maryland. It's 7 a.m. on July 1, just three days before Americans celebrate their Independence Day. The men are not here to liberate anyone.

Their presence, however, has attracted residents from the condominiums that overlook the pond, as well as residents from nearby homes. The residents have a look of shock and horror on their faces as the men herd the Canada geese into a small, makeshift pen, where the birds promptly cower in the corner, seemingly aware of their fate. The birds can't fly away because it's their molting period, that time when geese grow their new feathers and cannot fly.

One by one, the geese are lifted out of the pen, honking and flapping in protest, their elegant black necks contorted into fearful shapes. The men stolidly push the birds into the van's gas chamber, where the geese will meet their ignoble end. The youngest geese are the first to go.

As the gas chamber is filled, onlookers standing several yards away can hear the geese banging and thumping, trying to escape. With all the ceremony of taking out the trash, the dead geese are dumped in plastic bags and piled into the back of the pickup to make room in the gas chamber for more birds.

It is all over by 9 a.m. Only a handful of geese have escaped this death sentence. Those lucky survivors benefited from a dark numbers game. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit for this kill set the death count at 100.

More here: Source

If you really need to know more.


[edit on 12-6-2009 by Walkswithfish]

Yup I'm convinced, I now hate our species. Why not control the goose population like they do everywhere else? By hunting! Oh wait it is too close to our precious artificial structures that protect us from the elements that would otherwise kills us. Herding geese into a gas chamber!?!?!?!? A GOOSE HOLOCAUST! This has gone too far! When we don't like an animal species we just herd them in a van and gas em because they might cause a problem in the future? We deserve extinction. You know... we are probably the most destructive species on this planet. Just because one of our planes intrudes on their flyway and crashes the plane, we have to go and kill em by the dozen!? Screw this!

reply to post by Johnmike

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The only thing that is "invasive" about the geese in this case is that they get in the way of aircraft and are considered a safety hazard.

But of course, like so many people you assume that they are threatening other wildlife, or the ecosystem.

These birds eat grains, they go where they find food and the climate is suitable for them. Nature would usually take care of the population growth. But like so much wildlife that has clashed with human civilization everything is thrown out of balance. Whether you blame the birds or the humans is really not important.

reply to post by Walkswithfish

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How harmful are they to aircraft, and how much will culling their population help? I love geese, there were three families that lived by the ponds this spring where I go to college. I enjoy their presence, though I don't think they enjoyed me (hissing when I got close to the goslings). I just think, with no exception, that humans are more important than animals. So naturally, quite a few posts in this thread disgusted me.

reply to post by Johnmike

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According to the FAA large Canada Geese are a serious threat to commercial aviation. Perhaps you remember the plane that lost all thrust from birds and splashed down in the Hudson?

That is why these birds are going to be gassed.

I can respect your opinion that humans are more important than animals, I do not necessarily agree. But I respect it. Though the irony of having to kill birds so that humans can fly should not be missed.

The method of their killing to me is even more disgusting.

I tend to think of things in this world in the form of consequences resulting from Karma.

We kill a few thousands of these birds so we can safely fly, and then??

reply to post by Walkswithfish

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I can respect your opinion that humans are more important than animals, I do not necessarily agree. But I respect it. Though the irony of having to kill birds so that humans can fly should not be missed.

That irony is the sickest part of this. That and your other thread about starving people of the world, while we not only kill a viable food source, we poison it to make sure no one can eat it!

Living near wetlands in Florida, you get a little jaded to all the protected and migratory species. They can become a pain, but gassing them in mass is ridiculous. Issue some more hunting permits, trap and relocate them somewhere, give them birth control like they do pigeons, but don't just mass murder them! What a waste of life. I don't even like poisoning the fire-ant mounds. It is hard to imagine thousands of them dying below my feet, but its a lot easier right after my kids are bitten and blistered up!

reply to post by Johnmike

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Some interesting data I came across -- this is a link from FAA regarding wildlife strikes from the period 1990 -2007: Wildlife strikes by aircraft

One area at the beginning has some entertaining stats:

Figure 1. Number of reported bird (N = 79,972) and terrestrial mammal
(N = 1,737) strikes to civil aircraft, USA, 1990–2007.
Additionally, 253 and 95 strikes involving bats and reptiles,
respectively, were reported for this 18-year period for a total of
82,057 strikes by all species of wildlife (see Table 1).

Bats........ reptiles....... mammals hmmmmmmmm. Gonna need much more gas

more:

Many populations of wildlife species commonly involved in strikes have increased
markedly in the last few decades and adapted to living in urban environments,
including airports. For example, from 1980 to 2006, the resident (non-migratory)
A Boeing 767 departing a Midwestern USA airport at night for Brazil struck a flock of
canvasback ducks at 800 feet AGL, 15 March 2007. Witnesses on the ground reported
flames shooting out of engine #1. The pilot returned aircraft to airport using 1 engine.
Subsequent inspection revealed that ducks were ingested in both engines. Engine #1 had
substantial damage to fan blades and compressor blades; the brakes were also damaged
due to a “heavy” landing. The following morning, the remains of 9 canvasbacks were
recovered near the departure end of the runway. Feathers removed from the engines and
sent to Smithsonian Institution Feather Lab also were identified as canvasback.
viii
Canada goose population in the USA and Canada increased at a mean rate of 7.3 percent per year. Other species showing significant mean annual rates of increase included bald eagles (5.0 percent); wild
turkeys (13.0 percent); turkey vultures (2.3 percent), American white pelicans (4.3 percent) double-crested cormorants (4.9 percent), and sandhill cranes (4.7 percent) (Sauer et al. 2007). Thirteen of the 14 bird
species in North America with mean body masses greater than 8 lbs have shown significant population increases over the past three decades (Dolbeer and Eschenfelder 2003). The white-tailed deer population increased from a low of about 350,000 in 1900 to over 17 million in the
past decade.

I have eaten dozens of geese in my life. They're quite tasty, as I'm sure you know. My point is, why gas them? Why just piss their lives away for nothing? My second point is, it's far from just Canadian Geese that are the problem for aircraft. D'you know what the most common bird that made in on the FAA strike list is? Yep. Ducks. [edit to add: my bad, I read the chart wrong, it was gulls #1, @ 20% followed by pidgeons, followed by raptors, and then waterfowl. Ducks were #1 in the waterfowl category.]

LOT more gas.



[edit on 12/6/09 by argentus]

NYC Mayor's blunt to the point comments...

www.wnyc.org...

NEW YORK, NY June 12, 2009 —The city will start trapping and killing up to two thousand Canada geese next week, in an effort to reduce the number of times airplanes strike birds.

REPORTEr: Carbon dioxide gas will be used to euthanize geese within a 5-mile radius of JFK and Laguardia airports. Speaking on WOR, Mayor Bloomberg says non-lethal methods, such as the use of dogs, have failed.

BLOOMBERG: There are people who care very much about the geese but at the end safety of the public is number one and that's what we are going to do.

REPORTER: Last January, US Airways Flight 15-49 had to land in the Hudson River, after both engines failed following a birdstrike.

It almost sounds like a new war on terror.

Terror in the skies!

The new 9/ll threat: Canada Geese.

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