Gillibrand targets Kennedy-an geese

3 comments:

• killinggeesedoesnotprotectplanes posted at 12:18 pm on Fri, May 4, 2012.

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  I live in Vancouver, BC. Vancouver International Airport has the, or among the, most rigorous airport wildlife management in the world....and they do not round up and kill geese at all, let alone any of the bird sanctuaries near the airport. The only birds that are killed are those in the immediate airport property and only if other methods fail to move them.

  They do not kill birds on airport property unless nonlethal methods fail to move the birds. Rounding up and killing innocent birds away from the airport accomplishes nothing but make it appears someone is doing something. That is just smoke and mirrors, dishonest, and repugnant.

  “Let’s be honest,” says Dave Ball, who supervises the Vancouver airport’s million-dollar wildlife management program. “This is the worst place they could have built an airport….Collisions between birds and commercial planes are serious business, and the Vancouver airport’s wildlife management program is arguably the most rigorous in North America. “I don’t think there’s any airport that has quite as many resources dedicated to the job as Vancouver,” says Gary Searing, a wildlife biologist who has worked with the airport since 1989.”

  http://www.vanmag.com/News_and_Features/It_s_a_Bird_Hits_a_Plane

  One of the top myths listed in the Bird Strike Committee of the USA's 'top ten list of myths' is that if bird strikes are a problem killing them will solve it. "Eliminating any one problem species will only lead to some other species taking its place. A combination of bird control measures which take into account habitat management to reduce the attractions of food, water and shelter is a superior long-term solution. " http://www.birdstrike.org/commlink/top_ten.htm

  Senator Gillibrand obviously knows little to nothing about birds, bird strikes, or aviation and her overly simplistic ideas to 'protect planes' is right off the proverbial wall. Dead birds in a wildlife sanctuary will be replaced by live birds. In fact there is an official document showing they killed thousands of gulls at some airport in NYC to decrease the gulls strikes...the gull strikes decreased but strikes from other birds (maybe like geese?) INCREASED. .

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• killinggeesedoesnotprotectplanes posted at 12:05 pm on Fri, May 4, 2012.

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  “We cannot sit back and wait for a catastrophe to occur before cutting though bureaucratic red tape between agencies,” Gillibrand said. “We cannot and should not wait another day to act while public safety is at risk."

  .....Senator Gillibrand should look at the stats on fatal plane crashes. The catastrophes are occurring and will continue to occur even if she kills every goose in the USA because there has never been a fatal commercial crash or a civilian killed because of a Canada goose.

  50% of fatal crashes are due to pilot error, the rest are other human error, mechanical failure, weather, sabotage...and somewhere in the remaining 1% reasons for crashes is wildlife strikes - which were not Canada geese but a flock of starlings.

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• killinggeesedoesnotprotectplanes posted at 11:59 am on Fri, May 4, 2012.

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  Flight 1549 hit migrant Canada geese from Labrador, Canada.You could have killed every goose in the USA the previous summer ......and Flight 1549 would still have hit high flying migratory geese in January, 2009.

  "Gillibrand cited increases in bird strikes of 28 percent at LaGuardia Airport and 53 percent at JFK between 2009 and 2011."

  1) The Senator is quoting misleading figures.

  Fact is, until 2009 when Flight 1549 hit migratory geese, only a small percentage of bird strikes were being reported. The increase in numbers only means more attention was being paid to bird strikes and more were being reported.

  If she is going to quote supportive stats for killing Canada geese I would expect she could report a decrease in Canada goose strikes since NYC began rounding up and gassing geese. And she can't produce those stats obviously or she would have.

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