Brooklyn Residents Miss Their Canada Geese

After hearing that 250 to 400 Canada geese were relocated from their Prospect Park home to a nearby gas chamber, locals are mourning their old feathered friends. The move was part of the plan to reduce the geese population near the city's major airports, since one of their clan took down US Airways Flight 1549. Last Thursday the birds were captured, brought to the gassing facility, and dead within five minutes of the carbon dioxide entering their systems—they are currently buried in a mass grave.

With the lake emptied of geese, the Brooklyn Paper strolled over for some reactions from residents—who sound like they'd rather have the geese than airplanes in their neighborhood. One man told the paper, “It’s appalling how it was done—gassing the geese. I guess I never thought about how they would go about it.” Another wondered if "animal rights groups could have found another place to put the geese.”

Maybe the U.S. Department of Agriculture should have at least given locals a chance to take home a mounted goose to hang in their brownstone. If nothing else, it would be a constant reminder of what one man declared; he told the paper things like this should make people more aware of the consequences of air travel, noting, "it’s like knowing where your chicken comes from—it might come from some horrible factory.”

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By Jen Carlson in News on July 13, 2010 4:09 PM

Comments [rss]

squatch

i love how easy it is to get an asinine quote from a park slope resident and insert it into the story.

and the geese? good riddance!

handsomedevil

Im sure plenty of people would say that same of you if you disapeared

Brian

According to the FAA, 219 people have been killed worldwide in aviation accidents involving birdstrikes. Since 1988.

219 people. On the entire planet. In the last 22 years.

To put that into context:

* There were 757 total aviation fatalities just in 2009. And that's what the Aviation Safety Network called the safest year in six decades.

* 219 people is about 2 to 3 days worth of automobile fatalities in the United States alone.

Repeat: more people will have died in car accidents by Wednesday than have died in birdstrikes since Reagan. What does the USDA hope to accomplish by going all Buffalo Bill on birds... drive that number down to 215 deaths over the next 22 years??

ktinnyc

I blame the people that feed these vermin.

John L

They should've drove them up to Canadian border and released them back into the wild.

There really was no need to kill them like that.

handsomedevil

also they should consider moving the airports

Dead Himmler

You really are an idiot.

handsomedevil

unlike like some people I actually care about animals and I dont think there sufering is funny or acceptible

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

Sad and those geese don't fly to the airports. So the geese killer's excuse is full of shit.

paulie

Make it legal and I'll take out another 400 with a chainsaw. Those things are a scourge.

Yes, I spent my teenage years cleaning up their shit.

ides_of_march

Gas chamber for geese eh?

Arbeit Macht Fly

thedroog

i see what you did there. a holocaust joke.

you stay classy.

handsomedevil

thats nothing gothamist is full of nasty trolls who think the sufering of animals is funny. shame on people

youngpro

yeah and even more people who dont know what theyre talking about.

handsomedevil

you mean like you insisting that I'm felix LOL

Christine Quinn's Sushi Fund

hahaha

ur doing it rong

Good. They're always defecating in my swimming pools and the we have to pay the greens keeper overtime when they spend all day waddling around the 3rd and 16th hole.

Christine Quinn's Sushi Fund

"...they'd rather have the geese than airplanes in their neighborhood"

What about a DOWNED airplane?

NlGGAZ

Why couldn't we eat those delicious geese? That's like 3 tons of free range birds for Foie Gras and Peking Goose. Goddamn you FAA motherfuckers. What a waste.