800 Geese Near NYC Airports Euthanized

Birds Culled In Effort To Reduce Airplane Mishaps

(AP)  About 800 Canada geese around New York City's two airports have been trapped and euthanized, part of an effort to reduce the type of bird strike that led to a jetliner landing in the Hudson River last winter.

Birds have been culled from 15 sites within five miles of LaGuardia and Kennedy airports.

U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Carol Bannerman says agency biologists and other specialists are trapping and euthanizing the birds. Officials plan to kill 2,000 geese within weeks.

U.S. Airways Flight 1549 had just taken off from LaGuardia on Jan. 15 and was over the Bronx when it ran into geese and lost both engines.

Pilot Chesley Sullenberger safely landed the plane in the river that lies between Manhattan and New Jersey. All 155 aboard survived.

[bptdude]

people are assuming the goose meat went to waste.

i think people might find a lot of these were quietly taken home.

this is typically NYC mentality too.
like it never occurred that the geese were a danger before?
a plane crashes ... so, some big shot issues an order
"kill the geese, save human life"

are they now planning how to prevent the geese from hanging out?

[hereticzero]

I think this was a total loss of food for poor persons. How many families could have been fed by these geese?

[rwichmann]

Yum Yum!

[gnimelf1968]

I was considering buying a frozen goose a few weeks back, $65.00 at our local Pick n' Save! Geese around here are like rats, they are everywhere. Why just dump them when people are actually paying good money for goose? Even if you don't give them to food pantries or shelters, sell them and donate the money to mentioned pantries/shelters. They do that here every year during deer hunting season, hunters donate thousands of pounds of venison.

[DoctorLes]

Maybe they "had" to kill them, maybe they didn't, but why not call it what it is: slaughter, not "euthanasia". "Euthanasia" = Euphemism.

[platteman]

These geese are not all that great to eat. We got way too many of them. Get rid of most of them. In two years there will be more to get rid of. Geese and airplanes don't mix. The only reason that plane landed safely in the Hudson was because of the pilot, I seriously doubt that other pilots would have been able to pull that landing off. You have two choices in life. Get rid of the geese that bring down planes or let people die on take off. My choice is to get rid of the geese. They are nasty birds. Bird do do all over, polution of the water and they are just not needed in the numbers that they are now.

[kerry4ever]

I think you are confusing them with pigeons. Geese are very nice if properly cooked.The French for all their faults have some good recipes. Any competent chef should be able to rustle up a tasty pan-fried goose breast with roast potatoes and redcurrant jus.

[rwsmith29456]

Certainly this could have been done a better way.

[Newster1]

by aChangeOfIdeas June 20, 2009 1:59 PM PDT
I agree! 800 geese could have fed a lot of hungry people. How ignorant to "euthanize" them."

800 geese wouldn't provide but one sandwich for a few thousand people, one sandwich doesn't sustain anything, it's like ignoring the homeless 364 days a year and then stuffing them with Turkey on Thanksgiving and shoving them out the door into the cold again.

[kerry4ever]

Quote "800 geese wouldn't provide but one sandwich for a few thousand people". Well a Canada Goose is quite big, and could easily feed six people. Obviously they would have to bring their own stufing and roast potatoes and vegetables but were are talking nearly 5,000 people being fed. And if you take my idea and stuff them first with oatmeal to get foie gras, which the rich would pay handsomely for, they would not even have to pay for their own vegetables. It seems to be a win - win situation to me, and could actually redistribute wealth and help the poor.

[Newster1]

Illuminated1 June 19, 2009 8:05 PM PDT
Did they have to kill them?"

Yup, see corporate money comes FIRST, control costs profits, it's easier to just wholescale blast them away, much like the livestock industry did to the Wolves when the people invaded the wolves' territory in the West and began a systematic wholescale slaughter of everything and anything that was a "threat" to the rancher's PROFITS.
Of course they got the US Govt and taxpayers to foot the bills for all that disaster.

[aChangeOfIdeas]

I agree! 800 geese could have fed a lot of hungry people. How ignorant to "euthanize" them.

[cgm625]

I truly dont understand the thought process behind killing 800 Geese or even 2000 to address and engineering fault

In doing so, they are stating that an air crafts engine cannot be modified to accommodate a bird strike. By killing 800 or 2000 animals we are reducing risk by how much ? To me, they are doing whatever they can publicly to show they are taking action, instead they should be be forcing the airlines to design equipment that can accommodate common obstacles....like birds :-)

[kerry4ever]

You could even have stuffed the goose with oatmeal to get some lovely foie gras before giving it a good roasting. That would make the whole thing economically viable, as the rich would have the gras, and the poor would have the goose. It would even be good for the goose as they love to be stuffed.

[mojo1372]

there are plenty of people who go to the food pantries and soup kitchen here in nyc . they could have had them cleaned up, frozen and distributed to the different places.that is a waste . think about how many people 2,000 geese could feed. you can feed about 6 people on one bird.

[TheStolenGiraffe]

yea use the word euthanized, when what they really mean is 900 Geese murdered; and all because one of them got in the way of an airplane. where are all the animal rights activists who cried "off with Mike Vick's head" now?

[Sloughfoot]

euthanized: Killed, say the word. All things want to live. All things die hard. There is no glamorous way to die or to be killed. No sugar coating will change that. All predatory animals kill. Man is a predetory animal, top of the heap I might add. Revere what you have killed but admit what you have killed. Man's very presence on this planet results in the death of other living things, hide behind denial and fancey words if you may but dead is dead in any term.

[genedoug]

Why euthenize them? You could chop their heads off, strip the feathers off and bake them. Yum.

[ralpherus]

MOVE THE AIRPORTS AWAY FROM THE WATERFOWL!!!

[Jesslovesmovies]

If they were going to kill the geese, the Very least they could have done was to kill them in a way that people could eat them, and they wouldn't have gone to waste (like many others have said here). If everyone here can see that, why couldn't the "officials"? Hopefully they'll have the brains to not have the remaining geese they intend to kill, go to waste.

[NegatoryInhale]

I read PETA's rant about Obama swatting a fly this week what will they say about the Obama Administration's genocide of wildlife around the New York Airports?

The truly sad part is that there is probably another 800 geese already there to take their place. AAAH but the placebo of safety is a staple of the "nanny state"

[wogerwabbit]

The sad part is that the geese that live around the airports had nothing to do with that jet ditching in the Hudson River... the geese it hit were migrants from Canada.

[-Lawyers-Guns-n-Money-]

F-ing illegal immigrants.

[Sloughfoot]

You don't know that!