(Photo -- Goslings at Boat Lake in Central Park. But, will they be spared from a USDA roundup in the next few weeks?)
Yesterday, I accused the USDA Wildlife Services of "OCD" in this blog. Kind of tongue in cheek of course, but I truly believe WS is more obsessed with geese than I am. That is saying a lot considering how "crazy" I am on the majestic and whimsical birds who "move like Jagger."
First we shoot gulls at airports. Then we expand the shootings to other birds. Then we focus on geese and expand culls to five miles within the airports. And then seven miles and all five boroughs of NYC. Finally we expand cullings to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.
If birds cannot be safe at one of the most revered and prestigious wildlife refuges in the world, one wonders where they can be safe? And where does all this killing end?
It reminds one of some of the "craziness" with the TSA. Sure, its important to check people boarding planes that they are not carrying bombs or other weapons. But, when that vigilance degenerates into the humiliation of checking someone's colostomy bag, breast prosthesis or strip searching small kids and 80-year-old grandmothers something has gone off the rails.
Perhaps all these actions of massacring geese and strip searching grandmothers are meant to make us all feel "safer." But, it seems they are more symptomatic of obsessive need for control as they go far beyond what is normally "reasonable" and prudent.
Wildlife Services claim in the latest SEIS that bird populations will not be adversely impacted and that some geese will still remain following the senseless and brutal slaughters.
One has a hard time "seeing" that both figuratively and literally.
No matter how many thousands of geese killed and percentages reduced, the goose population (according to SEIS) mysteriously still remains between "20,000 and 25,000" in NYC for at least the last five years. That is astounding.
The facts are that geese only breed once a year. Not all adult geese breed. In fact, they generally don't start to breed until three years of age.
Nevertheless, geese are, as previously noted, very adaptable birds and most of their young survive in urban locations due to the fierce protectiveness and vigilance of the parents and lack of natural predators.
But, unless geese severely alter their normal life patterns to "compensate" for the endless predation of the city and USDA, there seems little way their population in NYC could still be the same level as it was previous to the mass killings.
Certainly, one is not seeing a stable population of resident geese at Central Park over the past five years.
Just a few years ago, there would be nearly 75 geese at Harlem Meer alone around this time of year.
Last year, that number was "reduced" to 9 who molted at the Meer in the early weeks of summer. And currently, there is only one pitiful family of 5 very human wary geese at Harlem Meer.
There are a few more geese at the Boat Lake in Central Park this late spring. But, that is only because one pair of geese produced six goslings.
That puts the number of geese this year at the Boat Lake in the teens -- or a few more than last year, but still very low generally for an 874 acre park and particularly as compared to past numbers.
Nevertheless, despite the very low number of geese currently at Central Park, there is no guarantee that the crown jewel of parks won't in fact be on the USDA "hit list" in a few weeks. No place with any geese at all in New York City can be viewed as "off limits" for a possible invasion by government agencies seeminly hell bent on destroying geese.
USDA has in recent years rounded up as few as 7 geese in some locations. It seems no number is too low for a potential roundup.
Unrelated, but similar in terms of government "management" is NYC Mayor Bloomberg's latest proposal to ban the sale of sugary soft drinks over 16 ounces.
This does not affect me emotionally as I am not a big soda drinker nor am I overweight.
However, as a thin person, why should I be prevented from buying a large soda drink on a hot day? Why would I have to purchase two sodas for a higher price?
The proposed measure is concerning as it is one more small step of seeming government intrusion and attempted "control" into private lives and what should be personal decisions of choice.
More significantly, it seems this action is a kind of "demonization" of certain people in society -- in this case, overweight people, who, like smokers are being singled out and blamed for rising health care costs.
But, if we go down this road of singleling out certain segments in society for blame in health care costs, where too, does this end?
What about people overusing tanning salons (skin cancer), bottle feeding babies, (supposedly a very bad thing although most babies were bottle fed from 40's - 80's), drinking too much alcohol (liver disease) or abusing prescription medications?
Potentially, every human weakness or "vice" can be turned into governmental campaigns or "bans" to seemingly "manage" every aspect of our lives down to what we eat and drink.
Educational campaigns are of course desirable and productive in terms of aiding people to make better health choices in life. But, when those educational efforts turn into restrictions, bans and not always so subtle attempts to demonize certain members of society, they should raise red flags.
All of these issues have similar thread. That is, government sometimes overstepping what should be proper and ethical bounds and making decisions for otherwise free-thinking people.
I for one appreciate governmental efforts to make our skies safer for air travel by minimizing and ideally avoiding bird strikes.
But, those efforts need to incorporate cooperation, responsibility and task assignment on many levels.
From manufactures of airliners to develop and insure that modern jets have some means of detecting and avoiding birds in the air, to the responsibility of parks and city properties to humanely and non-lethally "manage" their goose and bird populations to acceptable levels (through habitat modification or egg addling), to the considerations of altering aircraft speeds and altitudes during arrivals and departures from airports (the times when most bird strikes occur).
What is not acceptable is government simply deciding it is "cost effective" and appropriate to round up wildlife from city parks ad infinitum for slaughter. Wildlife that in many cases is appreciated and enjoyed by thousands of park goers and nature lovers.
Attempts to "demonize" and single out geese for what really are our own failures to sufficiently and holistically address a problem are similar to those attempts to blame and single out certain segments in human culture for failures in education or problems in the health care system.
We really need to look at holistic measures in addressing all of these issues.
Some people complain that there is too much government intrusion into private lives and that they want government out of their bedrooms and cupboards.
I would only add that I want government out of our parks and USDA's hands off our geese. -- PCA
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