Ghosts and Geese of Future Past -- Prospect Park

On the anniversary of the infamous Prospect Park goose gassings of 2010, one thing not seen then or now is a Canada goose peacefully swimming on the water.

Tomorrow (July 8) marks the fourth anniversary of the infamous goose gassing of 2010 that took place at Prospect Park. On that fateful morning, agents from USDA WS swooped into the famous Brooklyn park at the crack of dawn to terrorize, capture and send for gassing, all 362 of its Canada geese and their helpless goslings.

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Early arrivers to the park that morning, questioned park staffers of what happened to all the geese?  They were initially told the geese, "flew away to a nearby cemetery."

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But, two park goers, Anne-Katrin Tietz and Ed Bahlman were aware that molting geese and their young goslings were incapable of flying anywhere.  When finding scattered feathers and plastic zip ties strewn around the lake, they knew something unnatural and nefarious had occurred and immediately called The New York Times.

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The New York Times assigned a young reporter, Isolde Raftery to travel to Prospect Park and investigate the story.

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While it may have been easy to mislead and blow off questioning park goers, Prospect Park and government officials could not so easily blow off a reporter from the NY Times.

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Ms. Raftery's uncovering and reporting of a government-led massacre of all Prospect Park's geese later went national and subsequent follow-up reports ran for some weeks in the Times:

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Officials Plan to Eliminate 170,000 Canada Geese in New York - NYTimes.com

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In the wake of the stunning wildlife slaughter and negative publicity for Prospect Park, a number of community residents suddenly took to activism.  One set up a Facebook page devoted to the slain geese of Prospect Park (12) For the love of the geese in Prospect Park  and another, Mary Beth Purdy Artz, organized a vigil and a rally that were held at PP in the weeks and months following the goose killings.

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Some time after that, a young Brooklyn law student, David Karopkin, organized what is now known as (27) GooseWatch NYC specifically to monitor NYC geese during USDA WS culls and to hopefully document the roundups when and where they occurred.  Explained Mr. Karopkin, "I don't want to be asleep the next time" one of the secret massacres occurred either in Prospect Park or elsewhere in the city.

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This was a very noble goal and has served over the years to presumably make Wildlife Services a little uncomfortable in pursuing their NYC goose exterminations, though it has not handcuffed or prevented them from doing so.

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Unfortunately, goose roundups and killings still continue to this day in New York City -- four years after the Prospect Park goose carnage.

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But, what about Prospect Park itself?  What is happening in the park today in the wake of one of the more notorious wildlife massacres ever reported?

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Unfortunately, it seems not much has changed in PP since all of its resident geese were slain and even most of its ducks sent packing in a maelstrom of terror and panic on that fateful July 8th of 2010.

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For example, one Facebook page devoted to geese described Prospect Park as "EMPTY" of all but "4 ducks and one swan" on the entire lake during a recent visit. The post laments, "So congratulations for making a mess of a beautiful oasis in the middle of Brooklyn."

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Other reports out of Prospect Park over the past month indicate no (or possibly, two adult geese), one orphaned gosling currently living with two flightless, domestic ducks (likely dumped in PP), very few mallards and two swan families.

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Despite the depressive number of water birds on the Prospect Park lake, Goosebusters (a goose harassment and egg addling company) has apparently been patrolling and harassing geese and other waterfowl throughout the year up to and including the time geese are normally molting.  

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The methods may be different now, but the results are the same -- virtually emptying Prospect Park (and many other city parks) of all or most geese and apparently even most of their duck populations.

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I personally recall, for example, visiting Prospect Park about a week before the goose massacre of 2010.  The lake was alive with a cacophony of not only geese, but hundreds of mallards, shovelers and many other water birds.

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Several weeks later, when attending the vigil held for the slain geese at Prospect Park, there was barely a bird on the water with the exception of a few swans.  Virtually, all the mallards were, like the geese, gone, causing some people to question if USDA WS had also rounded up and killed mallards in addition to the geese?  (WS claims they did not.)

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Four years later, it is virtually the same.  A lake filled with duck weed, but few if any ducks and no geese to consume it.

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But, tragedy at Prospect Park does not end with the amelioration of virtually all its water birds.

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This past weekend, a two-year-old little girl wandered into the seemingly lifeless lake and lost her own life by drowning.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/body-missing-2-year-old-girl-found-prospect-park-lake-article-1.1856190#bmb=1

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Some speculate that perhaps the presence of so much (uneaten) duck weed on the water caused the child to mistake water for land.  Others charge that the family (apparently distracted by cooking on the BBQ) wasn't paying enough attention to the two children wandering off.  (The young boy was thankfully found later alive.)

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But, I personally believe that had the lake been alive with the presence of many geese and ducks (as it was in 2010 just prior to the USDA WS invasion), such would have attracted scores of families and thus a small girl wandering into the water would have been easily spotted and saved.

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Apparently, bird-empty watercourses don't attract the same kind of human enticement and fascination as ones with actual life on them.  And BBQ's might attract too much of the wrong attention as marked by careless distraction.   

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Prospect Park, in essence turns out to be, not just a graveyard for geese but tragically, humans as well.

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Exactly four years following the disgraceful goose gassings at Prospect Park and virtually nothing has changed in this setting that seems to deem itself more akin to Coney Island than a place of tranquility and nature.  One wonders when Prospect Park will bring out the freaks and horror houses?

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Or, perhaps they are already there.

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Ghosts and geese of future past, Prospect Park will forever live in infamy and tragedy, its now mostly bird-empty waters marked also by mournful death of a small child lost in the same dark and deadly brine.  -- PCA

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