About 400 geese were gassed last week in Brooklyn, as they are considered nuisances. There is no relocation program, and obviously little to no reasoning, as the geese could have been used as food, at least, rather than meaningless slaughter.
The carcasses of the Prospect Park geese will be double-bagged and dumped in a landfill. Other states use different methods, like turning the geese into food or animal feed. This year, the Agriculture Department donated 900 pounds of goose breast to food pantries in Pennsylvania.
I don’t even understand the logic of killing the geese, and to add insult to injury – throwing them in a landfill. Wtf!?!
(Thanks to Seth for the tip)
I work with a lot of hunters and from what I understand Canadian Geese and Snow Geese both taste like crap. Keep in mind that these are guys who eat a lot of different types of animals throughout the year – so when they said it’s gross….Well, it’s probably pretty nasty.
Well, in that case, I guess it could be feed?
It just seems so wasteful and, to be honest, cruel.
Meatball,
In almost all instances I would think that a senseless slaughter like this would be, well, a senseless slaughter. In the case of Canadian geese though I would make an exception. Those buggers can be not only a nuisance, but a safety hazard. The poop is slippery, and when they lead their little goslings across the freeway at rush hour they cause pileups. Many places have instituted an open season on them. The real solution is to allow their natural predators back into the system, but I’d guess that foxes and other carnivores would be even less welcome in Brooklyn than the geese.
Oh my god, I would LOVE it if foxes were reintroduced to Brooklyn. Wouldn’t that help with rats & mice too?
And then we could discontinue the use of cars!
Sadly, I’m not kidding at how exciting that would be for me.
Out here in Montana, we have several communities who are composting roadkill (we have a lot of deer, elk and antelope roadkill, big animals). It’s worked really well, and back east you all don’t have to worry about keeping the grizzlies out of the composting roadkill …