Senator seeks to allow goose kills near JFK airport

[marmar]

NEW YORK — The problem of birds living near some of the nation's busiest airports is coming under renewed scrutiny after two emergency landings in a week and more than three years after the famous ditching of a jetliner in the Hudson River.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Wednesday proposed making it easier to round up geese from a federal refuge near Kennedy Airport and kill them, an idea that's meeting opposition from wildlife advocates.

A JetBlue plane bound for West Palm Beach, Fla., made an emergency landing at Westchester County Airport north of New York City on Tuesday. A Los Angeles-bound jet made an emergency landing at Kennedy Airport after a bird strike on the right engine a week ago.

No one was hurt, but Grant Cardone, a sales training consultant who was on the flight out of Kennedy and was filming video from his window in seat 1D as the birds hit the plane, said it was scary. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20120426/US.Flights.Bird.Strikes/?cid=hero_media

[Remmah2]

1. Food banks and soup kitchens?

I wonder if the geese could be used as a food source for food banks and soup kitchens.

[XemaSab]

9. This is a good idea

Soup kitchens are probably better, as goose can be a pita to cook.

[Remmah2]

13. Is goose cooking different than cooking turkey?

We cook turkeys all the time at the kitchen I volunteer at. Geese seem a little bit more oily.

If the ecology of the habitat surrounding the airport is healthy, the geese should be healthy.

[XemaSab]

16. Goose is really oily

I was thinking that people at a soup kitchen might be able to get it together, but cooking a goose at home can be tricky.

[Remmah2]

18. I wonder if goose oil could be used for bio-fuel? nt

nt

[shraby]

2. I suggest relocation if possible as geese mate for life.

[Remmah2]

3. Geese are migratory.

Would they return?

Nesting in the flightpath of an airport is not exactly romantic, why do they nest there in the first place?

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. Because it's low-lying marshland?

They're geese, they neither know nor care what an airport is.

[Remmah2]

5. One would figure the noise would drive them off. nt

nt

[MineralMan]

7. It's a safe place to nest. The noise keeps most predators

out of the area.

[XemaSab]

12. Many of these geese have become non-migratory

and will just hang out in an area year-round.

They probably nest there because nothing can be built there because it's in the flight path of the airport.

[Remmah2]

14. Would the non-migration apply to Logan and JFK? nt

nt

[cali]

6. Would that work? As it is now, there are real and

horrible dangers to letting them remain.

[MineralMan]

8. Unfortunately, relocation won't work.

Geese almost always return to the place they nested before, and very often to the place where they were hatched. Mallard ducks, which also mate for life, also do that. My wife and I have been watching the very same pair of mallards eating under our bird feeder for seven years, now. They nest at a nearby lake. Each year, they bring their fledged ducklings to the feeder, where they all eat until it's time to migrate.

[XemaSab]

10. Mating for life does not mean that if one goose dies the other one will remain single

The remaining goose will soon find another partner.

[ananda]

11. Yup.

I needed by daily fix of some political inanity/absurdity or other.

This definitely qualifies.

[SOS]

15. The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is right next to JFK

Does Gilibrand want to landfill and pave over a national park too?

The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge—part of Gateway National Recreation Area—is one of the most significant bird sanctuaries in the Northeastern United States and one of the best places in New York City to observe migrating species. More than 330 bird species—nearly half the species in the Northeast— have been sighted at the refuge over the last 25 years.



http://www.nyharborparks.org/visit/jaba.html

[XemaSab]

17. Most wildlife refuges allow waterfowl hunting

There's no reason why a managed goose hunt can't work with the plans of the refuge, and it might even benefit the other species.