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The following was just posted on the (27) GooseWatch NYC Facebook page:
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"Just horrific. National Park Service just confirmed over the phone with one of our volunteers that there is a planned USDA roundup and slaughter of the remaining Canada geese currently at Jamaica Bay 'Wildlife Refuge'. This will likely occur within the next week or two, probably early in the morning, they wouldn't be more specific. Hopefully we have enough time to mobilize a response, and barring the unlikely chance we can stop it from happening altogether, ensure that either our volunteers or more ideally reporters from news media are on hand to bear witness. There are only a few dozen geese left there after the slaughter of more than 1,000 over the past two years. So now you know. Don't be asleep in your bed when this happens and don't say you weren't warned. Act now."
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It is more than distressing (though not at all surprising) to realize another goose cull to take place at Jamaica Bay "Wildlife Refuge" despite the low number of geese actually there.
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We need to be clear on one thing:
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This is not about airline safety. It is not about overpopulation, poop, salt marshes, geese pushing out other birds or any of the myriad of other rationalizations USDA Wildlife (Extermination) Services cooks up to justify wanton wildlife slaughter.
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It IS about trying to eliminate from all city parks, golf courses and other city properties (including a national wildlife refuge) a species of bird that many thousands of people have come to know and appreciate in our otherwise, urban wetlands and parks.
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It appears about eradication and/or "extirpation."
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This seems to explain why (despite being promised a conference call to discuss goose policies), I received no response or explanation from the Central Park Conservancy regarding continued harassment on low numbers of geese in Central Park and destruction of all known goose eggs.
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It seems to explains why, four years following a massacre that wiped out all of Prospect Park's resident geese and goslings in 2010, there are currently NO geese at the park which has since been "managed" with the aid and input of USDA WS.
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And it would certainly seem to explain why a further cull is planned for geese at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge even though there are comparatively few geese to actually round up and send to slaughter.
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I personally don't know what the answers are at this point or any way of actually saving New York City geese in hopes that our grandchildren might one day get to enjoy them as we have.
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This is an issue that the media doesn't want to touch (more important for us to know, after all, what the Kardashion's are wearing) and its an issue which most people are not even remotely aware of.
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For those with media, celebrity or political connections, it might help to contact persons of influence or power and request some kind of formal statement. Or, as in the GooseWatch post, it is certainly important to have people at perspective roundups to act as witnesses to take photos and videos, if possible.
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But, in the end, we are all witnesses (even if not actually knowing) to our government's seemingly never-ending "war" on Canada geese.
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The question is, why, and what was it all for?
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One wonders if there were people asking similar questions when bison, wolves, eagles, beavers and yes, even Canada geese were nearly extirpated in our country in decades past? -- PCA
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