Canada Goose Cull

[Andrew Taylor <>]

On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 11:53:09AM +1000, Stephen Ambrose wrote:
> An interesting (and unfortunate) response to the recent bird collisions with
> the plane over the Hudson River. I question the effectiveness of culling
> 2,000 Canada Geese in reducing the risk of future collisions. It would
> appear to me that other Canada Geese (and/or other large waterbirds) would
> move into the area to fill the niche left vacant by the euthanased
> individuals. I'm pretty sure that the air-space over the Hudson River would
> also be within the annual migratory flight path of Canada Geese.

Its been determined that it was migratory not resident geese
in the collision:
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/090066
Apparently stable isotopes analysis indicated the birds had summered
in NE Canada.

The NY times has a long piece about plans to reduce the resident birds:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/nyregion/12geese.html
The cull could be a sensible part of a long term plan.

Andrew