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Killing the goose problem

I have always been a lover of creatures, great and small. However, there are limits which have been broadly exceeded by the gross overpopulation of Canada geese on Long Island and throughout the country. As anyone in the village of Stony Brook, familiar with the lush green turf of the soccer fields at SBU can testify, huge flocks of geese have rendered the fields a disgusting mess with their droppings. There is far more to this story than the littering of human habitat and playing fields with bird droppings. The bird strikes by passenger airlines is on a dramatic increase. As a result, there has been an increase in crashes resulting in the loss of human life as well as millions of dollars in damage to aircraft. To date, there is nothing but silence from our governmental agencies, whose job it is to protect the welfare of its citizens. I have a suggestion.

A very humane way to handle the problem would be to establish an open season on the geese for hunters who will hunt them with shotguns while strictly observing all safety laws and town ordinances applicable. The county will establish freezer-equipped sites, where hunters will bring the fresh-killed birds for storage, to be distributed to soup kitchens and others, who will prove that the birds will not be used for commercial purposes. The hunter will be paid a bounty of 50 cents per bird to cover the cost of ammunition. The program will exist long enough to bring down the bird population to what is deemed reasonable — and no more. I will be very interested in the response to this idea, or better still, if anyone has a better way to handle this problem.

Paul Groben

Stony Brook

February 03, 2010

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