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Too many geese for New York airports?

Posted 7/27/10

To the Editor: I just read the article on reducing the numbers of Canada geese by two thirds because government officials have decided that the population is five times what it should be. Can anyone …

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Too many geese for New York airports?

Posted

To the Editor:

I just read the article on reducing the numbers of Canada geese by two thirds because government officials have decided that the population is five times what it should be. Can anyone give me a clue where they came up with this data?

The count of 250,000 birds doesn't seem like a lot of geese when you figure the size of New York State and that these birds migrate every year. Can we go with the real answer that the flight in the Hudson has everything to do with it and that the actual size of the habitat verses geese numbers played no part in all of this.

I am an avid hunter and support ways of habitat creation and culling these animals through season and bag limits placed on them by our wildlife biologists. This way nothing goes to waste as most hunting enthusiasts enjoy the table fare these animals provide and the numbers culled come from true statistics taken from years of work by our wildlife biologists.

So here is something to give thought to: Are we reducing the geese populations because the airline industry is lobbying with big bucks to get rid of them with no thought to wildlife in these states or is there a real need to reduce these numbers? My thoughts go with the first because NYS DEC has not increased the bag limits in the past few years to reflect these numbers provided in the AP article.

Eric Edie

Hermon