AR-News: (US-WA) Anti-geese editorial

[jim robertson]

http://www.tribnet.com/opinion/story/3821371p-3846741c.html


JANET JENSEN | THE NEWS TRIBUNE


Humane Society of the U.S. staff members oiled Canada geese eggs in March 
2002 at a Kent apartment complex.



Humans vs. geese: The battle escalates
The News Tribune

Some Canada geese still do what they are supposed to: migrate northward to 
Canada and Alaska for the summer and southward to warmer and sunnier places 
for the winter.

Suckers.


The others have wised up. Millions of "Canada" geese in the United States 
have either gotten out of the migratory habit or never got into it. Why do 
all that strenuous flying and honking when those wingless creatures with the 
goofy short necks provide glorious banquets of grass to feast on all year 
round?


And so cities across America have seen a proliferation of Canada geese in 
parks, golf courses and other urban pastures.


These fowls are pleasant enough to look at, but they do gobble that grass, 
and what goes in the beak comes out the other end.


Three pounds worth per bird. Every day. For a good-sized flock of 100 geese, 
that adds up to about 52 tons of goose poop a year. It fouls swimming areas 
and covers parks with slippery, smelly, bacteria-ridden doo-doo.


Check out, for example, the grassy bowl at the entrance of Point Defiance. 
It used to be a great place for kids to play and adults to just lay back and 
enjoy the sun. Now it is covered with feces. Really covered. Human visitors 
literally have to watch their every step to stay out of them.


Federal wildlife agents have been capturing and euthanizing non-migratory 
geese since 1997, but big flocks of them still abound.


Now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is going to the mattresses. It is 
proposing an August hunting season - with relaxed rules - to bring down 
resident goose populations in rural areas. For cities and suburbs, it is 
proposing to empower state and local governments to wage war on the geese - 
which until now could only be exterminated by federal agents.


Sounds good. Anything that would thin those gaggles sounds good.


Of course, some animal rights people will object to any such widening of the 
anti-goose offensive. They argue that geese populations could be controlled 
more humanely with non-lethal methods, such as spraying oil on their eggs.


Whatever - but the geese have got to go. We'll start shedding tears over 
these migratory slackers when they start using the public toilets.


(Published 12:01AM, September 2nd, 2003)


Groups Lock Horns Over Bison Range
The bison are grazing placidly on the wide Montana prairies, but plans for 
their future care have created a storm among humans. Thousands of 
conservationists and others have written or called the Interior Department 
to protest negotiations to transfer management of the National Bison Range 
to a tribal government. Geographically, the dispute centers on 18,000 acres 
at Moiese, Mont., home not only to hundreds of bison but also to elk, black 
bears, coyotes, ground squirrels and more than 200 species of birds. 
Politically, it focuses on the Bush administration's environmental record 
and the rights and independence of Native Americans. And that cross section 
of interests has created strange bedfellows. (09/02/03) Washington Post

..................

In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be 
cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the 
name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are 
at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.
-- Ruth Harrison, author of Animal Machines

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