A Race To Save Queens Geese

June 30. 

For animal rights activists looking to save potentially hundreds of the city's Canada Geese from the gas chamber this year, it's a very important date.

That's because June 30 is when the city's contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency in charge of a regional campaign to control geese populations implicated in several high-profile "bird-strike" incidents involving commercial aircraft, will expire.

"We are very hopeful that the city will not renew its contract with the USDA," said Patrick Kwan, New York State director at the Humane Society of the United States. "There is no need to spend the money to get the feds to come in and do something that we need to do locally."

In an effort to convince City Hall to abandon the widespread killing of geese to control the bird population in the five boroughs, Kwan hopes a pilot program in Brooklyn's Prospect Park will convince officials that there are other, non-lethal, ways to keep the human flying public safe. 

Some of those methods pursued on a trial basis at Prospect Park include tactics that, in Kwan's words, "make the city less attractive to geese," including the planting of tall grass by waterfront areas, the "addling" of eggs with corn oil and the use of herding dogs to scare off the birds.

If the coalition of organizations heading the Brooklyn operation, which includes the New York City Audubon, the Prospect Park Alliance and the city Parks Department, succeeds in its goal of convincing City Hall to drop its contract with the USDA, those methods could be instituted across the five boroughs — including the Little Neck Bay waterfront, which saw the lethal removal of 200 Canada Geese by the feds last July.

The killing of thousands of geese across the city came in response to aviation concerns, particularly after the crash landing of USAirways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009. Investigators determined that Canada Geese caused both engines to stall shortly after the plane's takeoff from LaGuardia Airport.

The city joined forces with the USDA in the crash's aftermath to reduce the bird population via lethal removal in a seven-mile radius from both LaGuardia and Kennedy International airports — an area that encompasses much of Brooklyn and Queens.

"It was a knee-jerk reaction that was completely inhumane and also completely unfounded by science," Kwan said of the USDA's "kill-first" approach.

However, in a conversation last fall, a wildlife biologist doubted the non-lethal approach would completely solve the problem of geese congregating smack dab in the middle of the region's busy flyways.

"Certain practices, including the oiling of eggs, may solve site specific problems, but it doesn't provide a permanent solution in reducing the geese population around the city's airports," said Chris Dwyer of the Northeast district office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The city is expected to make a decision on whether to renew its contract in the coming weeks. 

On that front, Kwan was hopeful that non-lethal advocates had successfully made their case. 

"Until the contract is ended, New York City will not be a safe place for geese," he said.