"Mangement to Extinction"

Today, I received an email response from Carol Bannerman, Public Affairs Specialist for the USDA Wildlife Services concerning the roundup and killings of 575 geese from NYC parks and properties this past summer.

 

The reply is disturbing on numerous levels.

 

I had asked in a previous email how 575 geese weighing approximately 10 lbs each would yield only 424 lbs of edible meat?

 

According to Bannerman:  "The geese were processed for breast meat which yields on average one pound of meat. Some of the geese were smaller and produced a lesser amount and some were not large enough to provide meat."  (Emphasis supplied.)

 

In other words, many of the geese rounded up this past summer were apparently baby goslings, with so little "meat" they were not worth processing.

 

And yet, the powers that be saw fit to waste time, money, manpower, oil, gas, and other important resources to send these 575 geese (including tiny goslings) on a hell journey to Pennsylvania to yield less than one pound of meat per bird.

 

Bannerman adds in her letter, that though the geese were not killed specifically to "provide food," the action was deemed "more respectful and appropriate than disposal."

 

One has to wonder to whom (other than PR spin doctors) was such waste of vital resources for so little yield deemed "respectful and appropriate?"  

 

Although USDA has been asked numerous times to provide the actual name and location of the slaughterhouse and goose processing plant, Bannerman neglects to do that in her letter.   Rather, she claims, "The name and location of the custom meat processing plant was provided to the media that asked in September."

 

But, Andy Newman of the New York Times did not have this information and as far as we know the Times was the only paper to actually cover the story in any kind of depth.   (Personally, I google all articles on geese everyday and if this information was reported by any "media" it would have been found.)

 

But, if evasiveness and dancing around realities are typical and to be expected in USDA communications, what is totally mind blowing is that anyone in this day and age would refer to slaughter as animals being "euthanized."

 

Bannerman does exactly that in her letter:  "All (geese) were euthanized there (processing plant) and those of sufficient size for breast meat were processed."

 

Even McDonalds doesn't claim its cows and chickens are "euthanized."

 

Bannerman goes on in her letter to semi-boast that because USDA goose removals and other intergrated management methods have been so successful, "the number of geese being required to be removed each year (at Rikers Island) has dropped from more than 500 in 2004 to 32 in 2010."

 

But, the key words in that sentence are, "being required to be removed."

 

Despite what is obviously a huge drop in population from over 500 geese a few years ago at Rikers Island to only 32 in 2010, the USDA nevertheless rounded up for gassing, the 32 geese in 2010.

 

There can be little doubt that the present "goose removal" programs in New York City constitute, in Audubon's Society's words, "Management to Extinction."

 

I of course, responded back to Ms. Bannerman's letter.

 

But, it is very obvious that it is going to require the efforts of many more than just one or even a few people to stop the wheels of death and destruction that are already rolling in  seemingly frantic motion upon NYC's remaining geese.  --- PCA

 

 

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