The following CNN animal news video comes from the Issues With Jane Velez-Mitchell show. It was added to the CNN website on June 29, 2012.
This is a perplexing problem for airline safety in the New York City area. The Canadian geese that live and fly around this area are a hazard to airplanes. The plane that made an emergency landing in the Hudson a while back was hit by a flock of geese. These birds can destroy the operability of airplane engines. In the worst-case scenario, another plane could go down. Next time, all may die.
To combat this risk, New York authorities have been rounding up the geese and killing them. As a result advocacy group GooseWatch NYC is protesting.
For starters, it’s rather obvious that GooseWatch NYC can’t just take the position to leave the geese alone. Like all animal groups I have ever seen, they only take the animals’ side without coming up with reasonable compromises. Of course, the government isn’t going to just do nothing. That plane that went down already was lucky to have any survivors at all.
Perhaps the solution is to relocate the geese. I really don’t know if this is viable or not because they may come right back. But doing nothing is too risky.
On a side note, GooseWatch found David Karopkin sounds like a 12-year-old idiot in his interview. He claims there is no answer why the geese are being killed. Is he really that stupid? Everyone knows why, you fool.
This video mentions possible solutions, such as avian radar systems. But it in no way provides proof that such systems even work.
I read your comments on the NYC geese roundups and you’re way off base. I wrote an op-ed for The Birmingham News in Alabama because we’re having a similar issue here. I tried to email it to you but you email won’t accept it. However, you can google my name and the story should come up. I’m also researching bird-strike prevention programs so I know a little about them. Here’s the thing: the USDA’s Wildlife Services kills for profit not passenger safety. The industry trend is toward nonlethal, long-range programs that seek to keep planes and birds safely apart while protecting and preserving local avian populations. Google the airport sites for Seattle-Tacoma and Portland, two of the nation’s most progressive airports in this respect, and you will see an entirely different approach to managing birds and other wildlife, an approach that also includes an entire community. The problem in NYC is that the Port Authority has suspicious ties to an agency (Wildlife Services) that is now facing congressional investigation for widespread brutality in managing the nation’s wildlife conflicts and blatant misuse of taxpayer funds. It is also making mucho bucks off these roundups. What JFK and other airports under the Port Authority ought to be doing is initiating long-term strategies that make the airport and immediate vicinities less attractive to geese and other birds — and bring New Yorkers into the plan. The only airports that kill geese every summer are those (few) whose wildlife programs are managed by Wildlife Services (Minneapolis-St. Paul, JFK-LaGuardia, Madison (Wis) and now Birmingham, Al., where I live). After my article appeared, pilots from Birmingham told me anonymously that they have never seen a goose in or near the airport. I believe that to be true. I also think that there are kickbacks and other behind-the-scenes activities that airport authorities don’t want the public to know about. In our case, I think the Birmingham Airport Authority wants to buy the land where the geese were killed, using the roundups as a back-door approach. You were also wrong to call David Karopkin an idiot. He’s a smart, enterprising person who is trying to right a terrible wrong. While I may not agree with his methods, I know that his heart is in the right place. Thus I am nominating him for a CNN Heroes Award. I know that it is hard to understand the underlying issues behind the feds’ atrocities, particularly in the case of airport geese but try to refrain from making rash judgments about issues about which you are not informed. Mary Lou Simms
It sounds like you are the one who is not informed and are just grasping at straws to try to help geese. For example, your phrase “bring New Yorkers into the plan” means nothing. What the heck is that supposed to mean?
Federal agencies use a variety of means to raise money. That says nothing about whether the activity being spoken of is right or wrong. Nice try, but how about you just stop with the conspiracy theories and address the actual merits? You just make yourself look bad.
Like the video, you have still provided zero proof that there is a working alternative. Instead, you use phrases like “an approach that also includes an entire community.” Again, these phrases mean nothing.
Are you or are you not denying that geese caused that plane to crash in New York? Do you know how lucky that plane was not to lose everyone on board? That is an extremely rare crash landing that actually worked. So your Birmingham example literally means nothing. Yeah, federal policy should be based on anonymous pilots who are not even wildlife experts. LOL. You’re really grasping at straws.
Where is the proof that other techniques are foolproof? It doesn’t matter that other communities are trying it. Simply trying is not proof of working.
I specifically stated that relocation, if feasible, was a better alternative than killing the geese. But I don’t know and you clearly have not stated any facts to show that that plan is workable. If it is, then let’s see that plan put into place instead of your unproven community-involvement programs.
P.S. Could you please learn to use paragraphs? It’s very hard to read a large block of text without so much as a single line break.
Jimmy: I don’t want to belabor the point but what I didn’t mention was that I’m also an investigative reporter, most recently working under a grant from The Fund for Investigative Journalism in Washington, D.C., so I know a lot about his agency.
Wildlife Services is the the USDA’s dirty little secret. I spent three years investigating the agency’s mismanagement of geese populations coast to coast, widespread brutality toward geese and other species, and its misuse of taxpayer money to support its actions.
The stories, published by McClatchy-Tribune News Service, indicate that taxpayers are substidizing a $126.5 million dollar program that exterminates some 5 million animals annually, including thousands of community geese. My research indicates that the real reason behind the “killing” contracts, as they’re called, is profit, and my initial story goes into the specifics. You can google it online.
A few months ago, the Sacramento Bee in California also ran a three-part series on this agency’s widespread brutality and wasteful spending out west. As a result, the agency is facing congressional investigation. Let’s hope this agency is, at long last, and after years of animal brutality, brought under control.
Do not post an entire article of yours. That’s ridiculous.
You keep saying animal brutality, but even your own study says the geese are killed by gas. You may disagree with the practice, but there is nothing brutal about that. Every post you make and the words you use just show more and more how biased you are.
Jimmy: If you will send me an email address, I will send you other information. I don’t mean to disillusion you about a federal agency whose tactics are widely suspect but you really ought to consider another side. I was stunned by this agency’s action when I first began the investigation. I had my suspicions but even I was not prepared by what I found. Mary Lou
Jimmy, you said “The Canadian geese that live and fly around this area are a hazard to airplanes. The plane that made an emergency landing in the Hudson a while back was hit by a flock of geese. ”
Jimmy, your comments suggest you know little about bird strikes and airports or even Flight 1549.
Here is some information about ‘the plane that made an emergency landing’:
Flight 1549 hit MIGRATORY GEESE from Labrador, Canada confirmed by the Feather Analysis Laboratory at the Smithsonian Institute. These were MIGRATORY geese not NYC’s resident geese that live there and ‘fly around’. NYC is on the Atlantic Flyway and there are tens of thousands of Canada geese migrating through there twice a year.
1) Flight 1549 was an Airbus A320. In 2004 the FAA issued warnings that the Airbus A320 was prone to double engine failure:
“An emergency safety directive has been issued to airlines using twin-engine Airbus A320s after both engines on one stalled over the Mediterranean, just 18 days after an Air New Zealand A320 crashed killing all seven on board………. American authorities warned such stalling problems could prevent continued safe flight or landing.”.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/246674/
2) Flight 1549 was an Airbus A320……..645 died in ten years in Airbus A320 crashes….not one of those CATASTROPHIC crashes was due to a bird strike.
Fatal and significant airbus A320 incidents:
http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/a320.htm
3) Flight 1549′s engines did not even meet current 2009 bird strike standards, new standards required engines to be able to ingest a bird twice the size than the 1996 standards Flight 1549′s engines were certified to.
” In 2007, the FAA adopted new regulations regarding bird strikes, and the new rules increased the size of the birds used in the core tests to 5½ pounds. However, engines certificated prior to 2007 were NOT obliged to meet the new requirements.”
nsc.nasa.gov/SFCS/SystemFailureCaseStudyFile/Download/181/
4) Flight 1549 had turbofan engines…these engines suck birds in rather than blow them away and these planes experience five times the bird strikes other planes do.
Bird strikes are five times more likely to occur on planes with engines mounted under the wings, such as the Boeing 737 or the AIRBUS A320, than on planes with engines mounted on the fuselage, like the Boeing MD-It is probably because the airflow over the MD-80 causes the birds to get blown away from the engines.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-a-bird-strike&page=2
NYC has had resident geese for years as well as millions of planes taking off and landing at its airports – and there hasn’t been one crash related to NYC’s resident geese.
There is no scientific evidence that killing NYC’s resident birds has or will keep the flying public safer. No. Scientific. Evidence.
I also want to point out….in 1995 an American Air Force plane ran into Canada geese on takeoff in Alaska, crashed, and killed 24 airmen. In that case the Air Force knew they had Canada geese living ON THE BASE but did nothing. Why didn’t that fatal crash instigate stringent wildlife hazard management at NYC’s airports and in NYC? That was 1995 and apparently NYC did nothing until 14 years later when one dud of a plane hit migratory geese and made a big splash in the news.
NYC has had resident geese in parks and Jamaica Bay forever…they also knew geese had babies. They could have had a Canada goose management plan in place for years. Other intelligent communities have.
NEWS RELEASE: EGG ADDLING CONTROLS GOOSE POPULATION
The Okanagan Valley Goose Management program is working on its SIXTH YEAR OF EGG ADDLING TO CONTROL THE NUMBER OF CANADA GEESE in public spaces.
“LAST YEAR, field crews located and ADDLED 1308 EGGS FROM 274 nests between Vernon and Osoyoos,” said Project Coordinator Kate Hagmeier. “The multi-year project aims to reduce the population of resident Canada geese to a more manageable level, and reduce large concentrations of geese in heavily used public areas.
http://www.okanagangooseplan.com/?p=195
http://www.okanagangooseplan.com/
http://www.okanagangooseplan.com/files/OVGMP_Strategy_Action%20Plan_2006.pdf
No plane has ever crashed because of NYC’s resident geese. This suggests to me they must have some understanding of airports and planes and by killing them and making room for geese that don’t have that experience you are increasing the chances of a ‘catastrophic’ strike. Geese fly by landmarks…obviously the flight paths of NYC’s resident geese don’t include flying into planes or they would have done it a lot in all the years there have been geese and planes there.
Hehehehe. You wrote this:
“No plane has ever crashed because of NYC’s resident geese. This suggests to me they must have some understanding of airports and planes and by killing them and making room for geese that don’t have that experience you are increasing the chances of a ‘catastrophic’ strike. Geese fly by landmarks…obviously the flight paths of NYC’s resident geese don’t include flying into planes or they would have done it a lot in all the years there have been geese and planes there.”
There is no response needed on my part. You now read the minds of geese. So I guess you know everything on this topic. LOL.
You don’t read very well. I did not say the plane was hit by a flock of Canadian geese. I said a flock of geese. Stop splitting hairs on the type of geese. They are still a hazard. So tell me the exact flight path of Canadian geese near Kennedy. Don’t even try. We both know you don’t know their flight patterns. So you can’t say they are not a hazard because it hasn’t happened yet. That’s because there are only a small number of accidents of this type. It is not the number of accidents that is an issue. That number is very small. It is the enormity of a single accident (hundreds of human lives wiped out at once) that is the issue.
Jimmy, you made these two comments:
“Like the video, you have still provided zero proof that there is a working alternative. Where is the proof that other techniques are foolproof? It doesn’t matter that other communities are trying it. Simply trying is not proof of working.”
These two comments show you know zilch to nothing about wildlife hazard management around airports.
As well you can’t provide any proof at all killing resident geese is ‘working’ or accomplishing anything for air safety. No plane has ever crashed because of NYC’s resident geese.
THERE ARE NO FOOL PROOF techniques and where do you get the crazy idea that there are? The only fool proof technique would be to kill every bird in the world and since bird strikes aren’t a cause of fatal plane crashes you still wouldn’t be accomplishing much.
How is killing NYC’s resident geese and goslings a ‘fool proof’ technique when you are on the Atlantic Flyway with millions of migratory birds passing through twice a year and when Flight 1549 HIT MIGRATORY GEESE?
Look at the causes of REAL PLANE CRASHES:
1) CBS recently interviewed David Soucie, aviation expert, former crash investigator with the FAA, and author of ‘Why Planes Crash’. He says planes crash because of PILOTS. Not those little feathered flying terrorist Canada geese, but PILOTS.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7412058n&tag=mnRunDownTab%3BmnRunDownList
2) Ten top reasons for fatal plane crashes – wildlife and Canada geese specifically don’t even have their own category. Pilot error always has and continues to top the list.
http://planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm
3) Since 1960 over 600 people have been killed in plane crashes related to JFK AIRPORT alone…..NOT ONE of those crashes was related to a Canada goose or wildlife.
December 16, 1960 – a United Airlines Douglas DC-8 bound for Idlewild collided with a TWA Super Constellation bound for La Guardia; the United jet crashed in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the TWA plane on Staten Island, killing 127 people on board and five on the ground.
March 1, 1962 – American Airlines Flight 1,[92] a Boeing 707 crashed on takeoff from Idlewild after its rudder separated from the tail. All 95 passengers and 12 crew members were killed.
September 8, 1970 – a Trans International Airlines DC-8-63CF ferry flight to Dulles International Airport crashed on takeoff from runway 13R, killing all 11 crewmembers on board.
December 1, 1974 – Northwest Orient Flight 6231 a Boeing 727 chartered to pick up the Baltimore Colts in Buffalo crashed near Thiells, New York. The flight departed John F. Kennedy International Airport with only the cockpit crew on board. The pitot heat was not turned on and the tube iced over during climb out making the airspeed readings unreliable. The plane stalled passing 23,000′ and the crew was unable to regain control. All 3 crewmembers on board were killed.
June 24, 1975 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 66, a Boeing 727 on final approach from New Orleans, crashed into the runway lights short of runway 22L, killing 112 passengers and crew. The cause of the crash was wind shear during a heavy thunderstorm.
January 25, 1990 – Avianca Flight 52, a Boeing 707-321B arriving from Bogotá and Medellin, crashed at Cove Neck, Long Island, after a missed approach to runway 22L at JFK and subsequently running out of fuel. 73 passengers and crew perished. 85 survived
November 12, 2001 – American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 crashed while en route to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. During climb, the aircraft lost most of its vertical fin due to overcontrol of the rudder while encountering wake turbulence, and CRASHED INTO THE Belle Harbor NEIGHBORHOOD OF QUEENS. THE CRASH KILLED ALL 260 PEOPLE ON THE PLANE AND FIVE PEOPLE ON THE GROUND.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_International_Airport
4) Flight 1549 was an Airbus A320……..645 died in ten years in Airbus A320 crashes….not one of those CATASTROPHIC crashes was due to a bird strike.
Fatal and significant airbus A320 incidents:
http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/a320.htm
THE FACTS ARE….NYC’S RESIDENT CANADA GEESE AREN’T RESPONSIBLE FOR PLANE CRASHES AND PEOPLE BEING KILLED IN PLANE CRASHES. This war on these geese in the name of ‘air safety’ is one of the greatest hoaxes ever and it is almost unique to NYC. It is certainly unique to airports that have the USDA WS do their ‘wildlife hazard assessments’ and is a complete and obvious conflict of interest.