(Photo: 1-- A loner goose capable of flying escapes USDA goose roundup from Jamaica Bay Wildlife "Refuge" on July 9th of this year. 2-- Some of the 701 flightless, molting geese who were not so lucky to have power of wing.)
Thanks to a Freedom of Information Request (FOIR), (27) GooseWatch NYC was able to obtain some of the USDA permits and work documents specific to the roundup and slaughter (or gassing) of 701 geese from Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge on July 9th of this year:
There are several points of interest:
* USDA requests permits for far more geese than are actually surveyed. This is so they are not forced to release any geese after capture for exceeding the permit. Obviously, the intent is that no geese are able to escape or require release. If this does not indicate that the real goal for NYC resident geese is eventual annihilation, I don't know what does.
* The cost for "processing" (i.e. gassing or slaughtering) the geese was $6.00 per bird. 701 geese were rounded up from Jamaica Bay, making the taxpayer costs just for goose slaughter from this one location, $4,266.
* This does not include tax money paid for rounding up and transporting the geese. Nor does it include any money spent for "testing" the geese for possible toxins before "donating" to food bank.
In fact, there is nothing in the documents to indicate the geese were tested for anything at all.
The geese were apparently slaughtered (or gassed) at Parkers Poultry Processing in Dansville, New York -- more than 6 hours away from Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge!
It defies the imagination to think how the geese were crammed 4 to 6 in turkey crates and forced to suffer long, arduous trips to upstate New York in summer heat. -- Six hours to be exact and that isn't counting the time they awaited slaughtering or gassing.
And we still don't know whether the geese were in fact, gassed or slaughtered. However, both are horrible and neither represents "euthanasia" by any stretch of imagination or word twisting.
I am personally beyond words on what to say about this -- except to speculate that it partially explains why there is currently only one goose in all of Central Park.
One hesitates to even fathom a guess on how "Danny," the loner goose at Harlem Meer managed to escape what surely seems near total eradication of New York City resident geese.
Unfortunately, Danny's mate (or family) apparently was not so lucky. -- PCA
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