Yesterday's count in Central Park:
47,000 human runners. Zero geese.
The runners are of course to be congratulated and admired for enormous personal accomplishment. It truly is an amazing feat to cover 26 miles in two, four or however many hours it takes.
As a child, I was a very fast and agile runner. Always the last to get hit in a game of dodge ball, though that was probably more due to the adversity and fear of pain, than actual athletic prowess. (The boys always threw the ball hard.)
But, aside from the ability to run and jump out of the way of speeding balls, I also loved to run with my dog up and down the streets of New York City.
Running was a way to escape family battles at home or the dreariness and confinement of school.
I experienced running as very liberating.
But, during the 50's and 60's, athletics and running were not stressed either in schools or culture as they are today.
Once grown up, I drifted away from the exhilaration and freedom of running and more towards other "physical ventures" shall we say, (without going into details).
Among favorites were cycling, dancing, skating and later, swimming.
But, running faded into the backlog of childhood memories, some pleasant, some not, never to be revisited again.
Today, I cannot run more than two blocks without feeling that someone has taken a hammer to the balls and heels of my feet. (Then again, that could have something to do with wearing walking shoes when going to the park, rather than running shoes.)
Whatever the case -- age, lack of habit or wrong shoes -- I am simply not a runner.
But, I am thinking of taking up running now, not as a "sport," per se or as way to achieve some personal goal, but more as means to search for something that I cannot find anymore in daily, two mile walks in the park.
Perhaps if I can cover the entire park in less than a couple of hours, I might at some point, find a goose.
Last night, quoting from the old Joni Mitchell song, "Big Yellow Taxi," I wrote, "You don't know what you've got, till its gone."
I have been feeling those words acutely and profoundly for months now.
As much as I love walking in beautiful Central Park with my dogs everyday, the sheer joy has been taken out as our city's "war" on Canada geese has progressed and seemingly reached fever pitch. -- To the point now that it has seemingly succeeded in "removing' every last goose from the beloved local park.
True, the USDA "boogeymen" have not officially invaded Central Park and physically "removed" every goose, but they did in fact, "survey" Central Park this past summer.
But, the number of geese in Central Park was so low, that it probably wasn't worth the risk of potential media and public exposure to round up less than 20 geese in the huge, 874 acre "crown jewel" of city parks.
Nevertheless, as previously noted, the few geese in Central Park have been consistently terrorized and chased out by various goose harassment companies employed by the Central Park Conservancy. The likelihood is that many or most of the former "resident" Central Park geese were rounded up in neighboring parks and killed -- thus explaining why there are nearly none in Central Park now, or for the past three months.
I have of course been highly critical of Central Park for its goose harassment policies for this reason. What difference does it make where the geese are rounded up if the deadly results and consequences are the same?
And yet for all its harassment of geese, Central Park was not exempt from a USDA scouting and survey this past year. (Had they not vigorously harassed geese in the spring, its quite probable, Central Park would have been a target site of a USDA roundup.)
The USDA says in its most recent letter that, "It is our understanding that some parks have instituted public-private partnerships to institute non-lethal methods."
USDA apparently "understands" this, but doesn't seem to make the effort to know which parks actually employ harassment and which don't.
Apparently, it makes no difference to the USDA nor garners any respect or deference whether non-lethal partnerships are engaged in or not at city parks and properties.
So, the question is, why bother to use harassment at all if in fact, it does nothing to protect wildlife, nor garner any respect from federal government agencies and merely results in birds getting slaughtered elsewhere?
I don't know.
It would be interesting however, to see if USDA could actually attempt a roundup of the few geese in Central Park during the summer.
One wonders if any of the thousands of joggers who routinely run in the park every morning would stop -- or even notice?
Running is a great sport. It is great for fitness, a sense of personal freedom and mental and emotional well being.
But, even in running, its important to have eyes opened to what is happening around one.
I am thinking of maybe taking up running again.
But, not as sense of personal achievement or pride, as much to search for something.
Something beautiful, simple and honest that has seemingly been taken away........
The question is, can it ever be found again?
Or, like childhood events and visions, is it something to be relegated to the backdrop of memories never to be revisited or experienced again -- no matter how fast one runs or searches? -- PCA
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