As the city gets ready to off some more Canada geese (but tomorrow's Canada Day!), Andrea Peyser has gone over to Prospect Park to meet some of the lucky ones that may survive this mass termination cycle. But since they nearly took down a plane carrying Leonardo DiCaprio that one time, Peyser's not standing for it! She wrote, "The only good goose I know is served on a plate" (which she may be able to order up at a food bank sometime soon). Peyser's tour guide, Anne-Katrin Titze, tellls us, "I showed Peyser the 29 flightless 'critters' on the 60 acre watercourse, in order to keep her favorite target, the Prospect Park Canada Geese, off her radar for persecution and short circuit an outcry for culling in her column... We also explained to her that park Canada Geese are unfit for eating. I hope I never get that hungry." more ›

Has Santeria moved to the suburbs? After a spate of strange animal body parts turning up in Prospect Park this year, including a goat's head, one reader stumbled upon an animal's heart within a chalk heart outline in Glenwood Lake in New Rochelle yesterday. According to local police, this isn't the first animal part to be found around Westchester parks this year: a goat who had been sexually assaulted was discovered in Yonkers and a beheaded sheep was found in Ward Acres in New Rochelle. Police believe this heart was a turkey's heart, and are unsure whether it was college kids playing a joke or part of this recent streak of ritualistic animal killings. more ›

While the Brooklyn Paper rightfully calls the recent mass-slaughter of Canada geese in Prospect Park a cruel and inhumane massacre, at least it wasn't a mysterious murder scene. The geese were killed last Thursday in a gas chamber in an ongoing effort to rid the skies of the winged terrors, lest there be another emergency landing in the Hudson. more ›

With Yom Kippur coming up this Monday, South Williamsburg will be the stage for many a sacrificial chicken slaughter on Sunday. The Jewish ritual known as kapparot raises eyebrows each year, and now Dr. Allan Kornberg, Executive Director for Farm Sanctuary, has released a statement. more ›

If only seal sightings were reserved for vast seascapes. PETA sent one of their "seals of disapproval" to the Grand Hyatt Hotel this past week "to protest Canada's seal slaughter while the country's prime minister, Stephen Harper" was attending a meeting inside. The organization notes that tens of thousands of harp seals are slaughtered in Canada each year, and even baby seal's skulls are bashed in during slaughter season. more ›

Ah, Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. What better way to spend the eve of the holiday than by slaughtering an animal? The NY Times reports that the tradition of kaparot--"Orthodox Jews take live chickens, swing them over their heads as a means of symbolically transferring sins to the chickens, and then slaughter them"-- is attracting protest. Rabbi Hecht (whose father revived the tradition) says he received threats via email, phone and letters. His number one suspect, PETA, denied the accusation, met with Hecht, and says, “If anyone is really sending threatening or anti-Semitic e-mails, that is both immoral and counterproductive. It’s unfortunate when someone hands an animal abuser cause for self-righteousness.” How much does it cost to slaughter a chicken? Just $2 for Hecht's Crown Heights congregation (he bought in bulk). After slaughtered, they go uneaten and, in the past, have actually been shoved in to traffic cones once killed (video here). more ›