Letter: Killing geese isn't only answer
A mother swan and her eight cygnets are seen swimming on May 14, 2012 in the pond at the Charles T. Church Preserve, also known as Shu Swamp Preserve, in Mill Neck. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Regarding "Trouble takes wing" [News, June 28], about bird strikes on the rise at LaGuardia Airport, I'm a GooseWatch NYC volunteer. I have sat in the same park in southern Queens early mornings for the past three summers, waiting to document our nation's secretive killing agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services, rounding up molting resident Canada geese for slaughter in the name of aviation safety.
Unlike at Inwood Hill Park in upper Manhattan, where geese have been targeted for culling in six of the last seven summers, the USDA hasn't appeared in Queens.
Bird strikes have increased nationwide each year since the Federal Aviation Administration began keeping a database in 1990, not only because of an increase in bird populations, but also because of more airplanes in the sky. I have seen gulls walking on land, bloodied and crippled by USDA shooters at John F. Kennedy Airport.
More than 5,000 Canada geese have been killed by Wildlife Services since 2009. Our progress in air travel has been remarkable -- but what progress have we made beyond killing thousands of birds?
Jeffrey Kramer, Brooklyn
