Authorities will cull 2,000 Canada geese in public parks in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx
Suzanne Goldenberg, guardian.co.uk 12 Jun 09;
Authorities in New York have declared war on the large flocks of Canada geese that congregate around the city's airports, and will cull 2,000 in an attempt to prevent a recurrence of the bird strike that forced a passenger plane to ditch in the Hudson river earlier this year.
The cull will target geese at open areas and more than 40 public parks in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx within five miles of regional airports.
The city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said the effort was justified by the dangers the geese pose to aircraft. In January, the pilot of a US Airways flight was forced to make an emergency water landing after a bird strike, with his passengers making a miraculous escape from the aircraft as it floated on the freezing waters of the Hudson.
"The serious dangers that Canada geese pose to aviation became all too clear when geese struck US Airways Flight 1549," he said in a statement on Thursday. "The incident served as a catalyst to strengthen our efforts in removing geese from, and discouraging them from nesting on, city property near our runways."
The authority managing New York's three airports, Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark, had already had a programme to control bird populations through shooting and trapping birds, and removing their nests.
LaGuardia, which has a particularly bad history with birds, has had a programme of evicting geese for the last five years, and has removed 1,250 during that time. In the past, some of the offending geese were donated to food banks. That practice will not continue.
Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor, told reporters the geese would be herded to a collection point, and then taken off site where they would be put down using carbon dioxide in methods approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Conservation officials say there is a permanent population of about 20,000 Canada geese in the region. Another 25,000 are believed to pass through the area during the migration season. It is believed that the US Airways flight was brought down by migrating birds.
The cull is the first step in a major action plan to prevent birds strikes in the aftermath of the US Airways near-disaster, involving representatives from the city, airport authorities in New York and New Jersey, and the US agriculture department.
Bird strikes have been rising across the US, from 1,750 in 1990 to 7,666 in 2001 according to the federal aviation authority. Canada geese, whose population have risen to 5.5m last year, have emerged as a particular culprit. There have been 77 collisions between planes and geese in the New York area over the last decade, according to the federal aviation authority.
The city is planning to fill in a large hollow at Rikers Island, just north of LaGuardia, that had been popular among geese. At JFK airport, the authorities are also installing a new bird radar system, and have taken on an additional wildlife biologist to step up safety measures. The city will erect signs in parks warning people against feeding geese, and will teach wildlife supervisors in the field how to fire shotguns.
