More than 100 Canada geese have moved into Prospect Park in Brooklyn, where the entire previous goose population was captured and gassed last month, the New York Times reports. The original flock, which was killed because of the threat it may have presented to airplane traffic, numbered 400.
Though originally a wild, wide-ranging migratory species, Canada geese now thrive in semi-naturalistic human-built settings such as parks and golf courses. Defenders of the Prospect Park geese claimed that the flock was too sedentary to be responsible for collisions with planes.
New York State estimates that its goose population is a
quarter of a million birds
—nearly three times the 85,000 population that state biologists have decided would be appropriate. Nevertheless, the state’s nuisance-goose web page declares in bold type that
”
there are absolutely no plans by DEC or others to capture, euthanize and bury 170,000 resident geese
.”
