Ann Fanizzi, who was instrumental in bringing the
lawsuit, wrote the following Letter to the Editor after the geese were
killed.
Unfortunately, your article trivializes the extermination of a part
of our lakescape - Canada Geese - and it makes us the poorer, for it
diminishes the diversity and beauty of nature so vital to our own physical
and psychological health. Their death is a rebuke to us - demonstrating
the bankruptcy of ideas and humanity. In Lake Casse and Mahopac only
the fittest survived: the mallards (cute), a couple of swans (lovely)
and maybe one or two geese (tolerable).
These lake associations had,
in effect, created a zoo, arrogantly dominated and ultimately
mismanaged by man. But then throughout history, other animals
have been similarly trivialized
into near extinction - the buffalo, the bald eagle, the coyote, the
wolf, or used for man’s vanity
- leopards, ostriches, mink and others made the object of ridicule
- primates-
apes, gorillas and orangutans. And even the Canada Geese not 40 years
previous at the brink of extinction. All at the hands of man.
Further, goose flesh, laden with the products of man’s alchemy (chemicals),
is now being fed to the most vulnerable of populations - the poor,
the homeless and the elderly, a population in Sullivan and Ulster disproportionately
represented by Blacks and Hispanics. It is, therefore, fundamentally
racist. Why incur the cost of transportation when the Carmel Diner,
4 Brothers, Flanagan’s etc. are so accessible and goose flesh can
be placed on the chalk board as the specialty of the day - absolutely
fresh from lake to table. Will Baisley be the first to order?
Finally, some corrections of fact. Canada Geese
have never been implicated in onset of human disease. Geese waste
unlike
that of our domesticated friends, the dogs and cats, and that of
cattle and chickens, is not harmful to humans. And so after a survey
of numerous
research studies over the years, concludes the USF&WS - "no
supportive evidence" and yet, Baisley continues to mouth the
calumny and you report it without alternative comment.
Also, the 150 were the permitted number not the number of geese
taken since there weren’t 150 in total to be had - 30 perhaps at Lake Casse
and perhaps if all were taken 40+ in Lake Mahopac. It is unfortunate
that you did not have in your possession Tom Maglaris’ whining that
Lake Mahopac presented such a challenge that the association and
he negotiated two prices: $2,500 for 25 and anything over $8,600.
The
Lake Casse Association, being less financially shrewd, got a flat
rate no matter the number.
And so the people will have their sand and water, devoid of the Canada
Geese perfect flight formations, the calls of mates and goslings and
their silhouettes against the morning and evening sky. Death, for the
time being, triumphant.
Ann Fanizzi
Wildlife Watch and the Carmel/Mahopac Coalition
to Save the Geese brought a lawsuit to stop the killing of Canada
geese at five lakes in Putnam County, NY. While there was a hearing,
the judge didn’t recuse himself until ten days after the killings
occurred. He recuse