http://news.sympatico.ca/oped/coffee-ta ... r/0ed641f9


Canada geese near New York City airport to be captured and fed to the poor

19/06/2011 10:56:00 PM

by Monica Bugajski
New York City seems to have found a solution to its pesky Canada geese problem: kill them and ship them to Pennsylvania to feed the poor.


New York City has a solution to its pesky Canada geese problem. The birds, which have become a major hazard to planes departing the area's airports, will be captured and transported to Pennsylvania and served as meals to the poor.

We can all recall U.S. Airways flight 1549 making a dramatic emergency landing in the Hudson River in January of 2009. Officials from the National Transportation Safety board positively identified the remains of a flock of Canadian geese in the engine as the culprit. Though Pilot Sullenberger skillfully and heroically avoided a major catastrophe, officials don't want to risk future encounters between the birds and jet airliners.

So what has the big city done with such a fowl problem? Not wanting to appear wasteful, New York City's own Department of Environmental Protection has approved a measure to round up the geese, ship them off, and serve them to the poor in neighboring Pennsylvania. In the minds of the altruistic powers at be, this act of goodwill kills two birds with one stone: feeding the poor while avoiding landfill waste.

Now before your inner animal rights activist comes raging out, let's take a moment and consider the options. Since it's impossible to have a conversation with the geese and simply ask them to move to another less hazardous area to occupy (believe me I've tried and I only got honked at), forcible relocation seems to be the only plausible solution. But Canadian geese instinctively return to the same site where their parents nested year after year, so culling proves to be a viable option. The city, after all, wants to place the utmost value on human life and safety.

That being said, I find it particularly distasteful that officials have decided to serve the goose meat to the poor. Ask yourself, would you eat an animal that has survived by rummaging the grounds of New York City? I've lived in New York City, and believe me, I wouldn't want the contaminants of that environment to enter my food chain.

Even New Yorkers don't seem to want the poultry for themselves. Officials were unable to find any places in New York willing to take the geese as donations. But since Pennsylvania had already established a protocol for processing and distributing geese, the meat will be taken to an undisclosed slaughterhouse and distributed from there. Since the state is being rather hush-hush and unwilling to name the slaughterhouse, I imagine that the recipients of the goose meat will not know exactly where their dinner came from.

But I will give the people in charge of this nameless slaughterhouse the benefit of the doubt, and assume that the meat will be very, very carefully inspected since, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Canadian geese in urban areas are known carriers of E. Coli, parasites, and noxious weeds.

So, here's my question: if there is no real issue with food safety, then why isn't the city packaging and selling the meat to consumers? And ok, if New York State doesn't have the facilities to process goose meat, then why don't they use the same nameless Pennsylvanian facility to process, package, and ship the poultry out for sale? Perhaps it's because no one would want to knowingly eat something that ate something off a New York City street.
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i remember back in the 90's in ontario in a city named oakville, the city wanted to do the exact same thing because there were so many of them in a city park, ppl lost it and were blown away that the city would even consider this idea,this is completely disgusting to me, why do we humans have to immediately jump to killing something that is a supposed nuisance to us, if they do this i hope karma come back to bite em in the azz, let me guess, they will claim it's a matter of national security, idiots.. ...holmes*

you know holmes, this is virtually the same argument many hunters use, bear hunters love to claim the "population control" for their trophy hunting.

At least they are eating the birds, seems like a good way to feed some needy people and keep the airport safe to me.

As long as theirs no conservation issue I say have it.

i guess as long as there is no conservation issue, but its the sentiment that really bugs me, we'll just pawn these off on the homeless, they arent trying to figure out how to feed the homeless, they are trying to find a way to soften the blow of getting rid of the birds, the homeless are just a convenient way of disposing of the geese instead of just killing the birds and discarding them ....holmes*

I won't argue with you there. I'm sure they decided to get rid of the birds and realized people would get pissy if they threw them in the dump, so they had to find somebody to take them.

The question is, if I make a purely altruistic donation does it feed any more people then if the same donation is made with ulterior motives?

At least somebody in need will get a good meal IMO.

Recall reading a couple of months ago that Portland was going to try the same thing, but on a limited basis. Only 50 birds to be harvested to feed the hungry.

Why not Victoria Harbor Seal meat........
Just kiddin.

Now that I would support!

Nanaimo area seals and I'm not kidding!

Well, at least bears and seals don't bring airplanes down....but geese do.

I guess all the animal rights people can squawk.... until they lose a loved one in a plane crash.

While they're at it they should cull the pidgeons too......there's far too many of those disease-laden meningitis-causing pests around as well.

IMO anybody that has to shoot a bear to prove they are a hunter is retarded.

With the guns and scopes they have today, anybody anywhere could go out and shoot a bear thanks to the guide they'd probably be with.

Every time I see a picture of some guy kneeled beside the bear he just shot with his rifle that an army sniper would be glad to own...I always think " the only reason you shot that bear is so you could get a picture of yourself as the Great Hunter which will impress your no-brain buddies back home".........assh*le.

However I don't mind if they cull geese, rats, deer,pidgeons or any other pest that exists solely because some people feel the need to transfer their human feelings onto non-human species.

Turkeys are raised on farms every year just so Mr. and Mrs. Fatso can have their annual Christmas pig-out. Nobody cares about Turkey's or chicken's rights.
And if people cared about cow's rights, we wouldn't have burger joints.

Animal rights seem to be a selective proposition based on the likeability-value of a species at a certain time.

A Cull is not an extinction. It is control and management of a species. In otherwords....stewardship.

We are supposed to be stewards of the earth.

good points seafever.....holmes*