[Peace] Smile Politely: Stop the killing of geese

[Debra Schrishuhn]

Great article with an eloquent argument!
For the geese and all our fellow humans and creatures,
Deb

On Thu, Jun 18, 2020 at 3:36 PM Karen Aram via Peace <
peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> <http://www.smilepolitely.com/opinion/stop_the_killing_of_geese/>
>  SHARE
> <http://www.smilepolitely.com/opinion/stop_the_killing_of_geese/?fbclid=IwAR0IppOKI0RTp255qyUcRKvICotxFW_NimnSgNNdGo1i-zZ1krfrlo1YS2M#>
>
> OP-ED <http://www.smilepolitely.com/opinion/category/op-ed>
> Stop the killing of geese
> <http://www.smilepolitely.com/opinion/stop_the_killing_of_geese/>
> June 17, 2020 / 11:00am / By Ilir Sulejmani
> <http://www.smilepolitely.com/spusers/234609>
>
> On May 12th, the Urbana Park District  <https://www.urbanaparks.org/>voted
> to kill 60 to 100 geese at Crystal Lake Park. This vote came under heavy
> opposition from the public, and for good reason. Geese massacres like this
> are always brutal, costly failures. Current, humane strategies are working,
> and new humane strategies will super-charge the reduction of the goose
> population. Local activists have proposed a proven plan to achieve UPD’s
> recreational goals at the park and throughout Champaign County. The bad
> news is that UPD has rejected this plan so far for no discernable reason.
> The good news is that the massacre has not happened yet, so we urge UPD to
> do the right thing and cancel an impending cycle of costly, ineffective
> violence before it is too late.
>
> UPD’s plan will be a costly nightmare. New geese simply flock to the
> cleared area as soon as the massacre is over, taking advantage of the newly
> available land and food. Even UPD admits that this costly violence must be
> repeated. The geese are not just in Crystal Lake Park, they are scattered
> throughout Champaign County, which means there will be plenty of them to
> take residence in the park after each massacre. This year’s massacre will
> cost taxpayers $4,000 to $6,000, and this cost will be levied onto them
> over and over again despite the availability of better, cheaper strategies.
> Just look at Madison, Wisconsin, where taxpayers have been footing the bill
> for costly goose massacres annually for years
> <https://isthmus.com/news/news/madison-moving-forward-with-geese-kill/>.
>
> Effective goose management strategies must have two components: they must
> keep the geese out of places where we do not want them, and set up safe
> foraging areas where they will prefer to live separately from humans. To
> the extent that UPD has implemented habitat modification and humane hazing,
> these strategies have worked. UPD’s own numbers show a reduction in the
> goose population over the last five years. Continued tall grass planting
> projects will enhance this trend in the coming years. Geese will prefer to
> live in a safe foraging area proposed by world-renowned wildlife management
> organization GeesePeace <https://www.geesepeace.com/>. Local volunteers
> have offered to move the geese — free of charge — to such a location, which
> allows for peaceful coexistence without any nuisances in the park. This
> plan has already worked for decades in cities like St. Louis, Missouri and
> Rockford, Illinois.
>
> Even though more effective strategies are available, UPD is going through
> with costly, brutal violence. The geese are not being killed for health or
> ecological reasons. UPD’s complaints about the geese mostly revolve around
> the feces that geese leave behind. Scientifically, goose feces are not a
> hazard to human health. UPD has simply received complaints about things as
> trivial as wedding photo cancellations because of the geese. Is this a
> legitimate reason to massacre up to 100 sensitive, intelligent, socially
> complex creatures? Of course not.
>
> The way the murders will be done is especially heinous. UPD has contracted
> the United States Department of Agriculture’s Division of Wildlife Services
> to come to Crystal Lake Park and kill the geese. USDA has a well-documented
> history of severe animal cruelty. In many cases, they have even been
> implicated in illegal violence against animals. If this massacre is
> anything like the countless ones that have preceded it, USDA will grab
> geese by the throat or wings, throw them into the back of a truck, gas them
> to death, and ship their corpses to a specialized processing plant where
> their meat can be prepared for distribution. Because geese can hold their
> breath for up to 45 minutes, their death will be long and excruciating.
> This is not an acceptable fate for beloved local wildlife, especially not
> over something as trivial as wedding photo cancellations or a desired
> boating deck. Furthermore, the massacre might be called a “charity
> harvest,” but most food banks will not accept wild goose meat, since it is
> usually laced with multiple toxins.
>
> We might think of slaughter as a quick fix to our problems, but killing
> these geese will not solve our nuisance complaints. It will, however,
> perpetuate a toxic mindset. It is time for humans to begin acknowledging
> the objective truth: This earth does not belong to us. The failure to
> recognize this truth has led us to a climate catastrophe. It will continue
> to inflict unnecessary harm onto ourselves and other animals for as long as
> we turn a blind eye to the consequences of our destructive habits. If
> peaceful coexistence is possible, we have no right to resort to violence.
> We urge UPD to take a peaceful, rational, cost-effective approach to
> solving the annoyances in our park. Cancel the goose massacre now!
> *Top image by John Sailer.*
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