When a child, I used to drink vineger from the bottle.
My Grandmother would say, "That stuff can turn your blood to water!"
My blood never turned to water, but my Grandmother's dire warning stayed with me.
I've since learned that "can, could, may and might" are often used as scare tactic without actual proof of claim.
"You might break your neck if skiing down a slope."
"You can fall down stairs if drinking. "
"You could be abducted by aliens."
"The raccoon may have rabies."
Though dire warnings are sometimes warranted, more often than not, we need to take them with a grain of salt absent actual photographic or data evidence to the claim.
For every "can, may or might," there is a won't, doesn't or didn't.
And so it is, with virtually all the outlandish and unfair claims made against bird and squirrel feeders in city parks.
While generally true that any activity done to EXCESS usually does cause problems, it is NOT true that moderate feeding of urban wildlife in parks causes major behavioral changes in the animals or attracts rats. Nor is it true that feeding bread to birds causes significant health issues; on the contrary, bread-feeding has often helped to save park birds from starvation -- especially in winter.
It's better than nothing at all.
I remember some year back, reading "Goose Removal Reports" from APHIS (USDA Wildlife Services) which attempted to justify roundups and slaughters of Canada geese from NYC parks.
The documents were filled with "can, may, might and could."
In other words, speculation, conjecture and (to my mind) worst case scenario fear tactics.
Such rationalizations were used to justify capturing as few as four geese from a city park and sending them to a slaughterhouse upstate (in what could be called, "management to extirpation").
While real incident, "Miracle on the Hudson" was the primary excuse for killing more than 6,000 resident geese from NYC parks and Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, the fact remains that the geese that flight 1549 collided with on that fateful January day in 2009 were migratory geese from Labrador, Canada according to the Smithsonian Institute which analyzed goose remains.
They had nothing to do with resident geese in city parks who rarely flew above the trees.
It is therefore factually correct to say that these thousands of NYC geese posed no threat to anything and essentially died for nothing. However, many people made money from the NYC goose slaughters. From employees of APHIS, to park workers and rangers, from truck drivers to slaughterhouse owners and workers to even manufacturers of equipment and supplies.
In other words, a profitable "make work" scheme, but one that caused terror and death to thousands of innocent beings.
It is said that more than 90% of things we worry and fret over never come to pass. (All those coulds, cans, mays and mights.)
But sometimes our concerns do play out in far bigger ways than we even imagined.
Before leaving New York City in January of 2018, I had many misgivings and concerns for Central Park wildlife, especially Canada geese (all of which were expressed in this blog).
Sadly, most of the concerns about geese are being realized -- even the starving deaths of 8 of 9 goslings last summer at the CP Reservoir which was not foreseen.
But I never imagined the sudden demise of virtually all of the park's raccoons -- much as I was aware of many people's unjust fear of them.
Nor did I imagine a heartless campaign of lies and misinformation to demonize feeders of park wildlife and even threaten them with jail.
A part of me feels like I left the Titanic just before it hit the iceberg.
But one could say I saw the way the tides were turning and the ominous small shards of ice in the water.
