Canada Geese Love NYC Too Much

The Post continues its war on Canada geese—the type of bird suspected of downing Flight 1549—by explaining the geese population in the NYC-area is five times too big for human happiness. Apparently there are 20,000 birds in NYC and Long Island, but NY Department of Environmental Conservation specialist Bryan Swift says 4,000 geese would be the population "where people would say, 'These are a good thing,' and 'It's nice to have the geese around.'" And Cornell University bird expert Paul Curtis tells the paper, "The habitat can support them, but they exceeded the cultural carrying capacity, or people's tolerance for them, long ago." The DEC says hunting lowers the geese population (of course) and lawmakers have suggested control measures like "oiling unhatched eggs [to] prevent them from hatching" and "pouring gravel over fields [to] keep many from returning." Photo of geese in the Bronx: missapril1956 on Flickr