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It has been reported over the decades that a meeting between John Lennon and Bob Dylan once took place in the back of a limousine. Dylan said to Lennon, "Your music is nice, but it doesn't say anything." Such apparently later inspired the Beatles, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
One could say the same about most media articles on geese -- especially this Pollyanna piece from today's Daily News:
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Not only is the headline of the article misleading by intimating that a small group of people are capable of and actively "protecting" NYC geese from USDA Wildlife Services slaughters, but much of the language is similarly deceptive and reported facts, distorted and/or minimized.
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I refer of course to the now obnoxiously repeated euphemisms of "removals" and "euthanasia" to refer to wildlife massacres, as well as attempts to minimize actual goose killings in New York City.
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More than 5,000 geese have been captured and killed from city and federal properties in NYC over the past four years, but no where in the article does it say that.
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Rather, the article quotes USDA WS spokeswoman, Carol Bannerman as saying, "The number of geese removed over the past two years was under 300, compared with 1,235 in 2009 and 1,448 in 2010."
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Bannerman (in typical PR fashion), was apparently only referring to geese slaughtered from city parks over the past two years and not including the more than 1,000 rounded up from Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge over the same time period. But, the bottom line is that the numbers reported in the article are misstated and greatly sugar-coat and minimize the reality.
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The article further attempts to put charitable spin on the wildlife carnage by saying, "Their (the geese) meat is usually donated to food pantries." In fact, only goose breast meat is dumped on food pantries (less than one pound per typically ten pound bird) and that with a warning "not to eat more than once a month" due to concerns of high mercury and lead counts, as well as the possibility of biting down on gun pellets. "Bon appetite," one might say to such gift gooses.
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What however is most striking about the Daily News piece is that according to Carol Bannerman, the geese do not appear to be "repopulating" in NYC and yet the roundups and slaughters still continue. One is tempted to ask what then is the end goal for resident geese in New York City? (Complete eradication?) But, the obvious questions are never asked nor answered in the article.
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I contacted the journalist and author of the misleading article, Lisa Colangelo, expressing "disappointment" and explaining why in some detail. We in fact, exchanged several emails on the subject.
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But, I may as well had simply said, "Your article is nice, but it doesn't say anything."
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Ah, that I might only have the gift for words and brevity that Dylan did.
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And that only Colangelo and the rest of the media have the integrity to self-question and come up with their own journalistic equivalent of the Beatles' (later) masterpiece album. (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Goose Heart Band one might suppose.)
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Truth be known, these are wildlife massacres from city properties paid for with our tax dollars and rationalized through fantastic claims of so-called, "airline safety."
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As a people, we are diminished from such carnage as opposed to being made whole or "protected" by them.
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Pity the geese, forever vilified, forever shot, gassed or slaughtered. And forever their deaths minimized and passed off as "euthanasia" by mass media that otherwise, doesn't say anything. -- PCA
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