All Brooklyn news
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Special sections
About The Paper
Mobile site
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feeds

Confidential! Notes reveal that goose massacre was unnecessary

By Stephen Brown
The Brooklyn Paper

Tools

Print this story
Facebook this
Tweet this
Digg this
Del.icio.us

Documents obtained by The Brooklyn Paper through a Freedom of Information Law request reveal a vigorous debate over how best to control the goose population near New York’s airports — and shows that last month’s extermination of some 290 geese in Prospect Park may not have been necessary. The excerpted transcript below represents minutes of a meeting among various state, city and federal agencies from 2006 that discusses how widely geese should be culled. The consensus was five miles from airports, which does not include Prospect Park.

Federal Wildlife Services: How far outside the airport?

B&R Electronics

U.S. Department of Agriculture: A five-mile radius is sensible, not further than five miles.

Kim Wagner of Wildlife Services: Geese will be hardest to control in parks. [There is] an emotional issue. [We] need to know how to handle [it].

Department of Environmental Protection: According to the Federal Aviation Administration in previous … meetings, five miles is just a number. The liability issue can extend 30 miles [and] influence any large area.

USDA: No additional studies will occur. … [We] need to pick a distance.

DEP: [Can we] put to rest the five-mile limit? [We are] not satisfied.

Port Authority of NY and NJ: Five miles is a huge area to manage.

Jamaica Bay representative: Five miles is good.

©2010 Community Newspaper Group

←Carroll Gardens: Woman fights back against thief
→Prospect Heights: Another school is crime victim

Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.

Packer Summer Day Camp
Tomasos Restaurant

Links