The city’s mass extermination of geese in Prospect Park last year was so effective that it will not be repeated this summer, city officials revealed on Thursday.
Hundreds of geese citywide will still be slaughtered in the name of aviation security, the New York Times reported late yesterday, but not in Prospect Park.
According to the newspaper, the Department of Environmental Protection refused to reveal where geese would be massacred this year, but said that several of the 2010 geese killing fields would be spared because the slaughters left too few geese to worry about this year.
Currently, there are just 26 Canada geese living in Prospect Park. Last year, more than 350 geese were slaughtered there, plus hundreds more elsewhere around the city.
The announcement comes on the eve of a promised “goose watch” vigil to prevent another extermination this summer. Federal officials typically slaughter geese in mid- to late June after the birds molt and cannot fly away from workers who corral them into pens before gassing them with fatal doses of carbon monoxide.
