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We advocate on all animal protection and exploitation issues, including experimentation, factory farming, rodeos, breeders and traveling animal acts.

Animal Defenders of Westchester
P.O. Box 205
Yonkers, NY 10704

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 4, 2013

CONTACT:
Kiley Blackman
[email protected]
www.adow.org

'IT'S THEIR AIRSPACE TOO'

MAJOR CONFERENCE IN CORNWALL TO AVERT MORE KILLING OF GEESE

CORNWALL, NY NOVEMBER 4, 2013 Westchester4Geese will be an invited guest to speak for the geese in Cornwall, NY on Monday, Nov 4, 2013, when the Goose Management Committee meets at Munger Cottage, 183 Main Street, at 7 P.M. discuss the hush-hush geese raid and slaughter the USDA conducted in July, and how this dubious event can be avoided in the future.

In July of 2013, the USDA, which makes millions of taxpayer-dollars by urging communities to kill wildlife, had convinced Cornwall town officials that there was 'potential' for the geese to collide with airplanes at Stewart airport - which is seven miles away from Cornwall's Ring's Pond area where the geese are, and has never had even one single issue with geese 'strikes,' and persuaded the town it needed to kill its geese residents.

After the USDA snuck in and shoved the featherless, flightless birds and their babies into crates, they were taken away and slaughtered out of view of the townspeople; but newspaper accounts reported an immediate appearance of yet more geese to the area a few weeks later - 'More geese than there were in the first place,' said committee member Tom DiCarrado, who is also the vice president of the local SPCA.

The committee was appointed by the town and given the task of finding humane alternatives to slaughter after an outcry from residents of the town and elsewhere who are fighting to expose the unjust, cruel and pointless slaughters of geese and other wildlife being conducted by the USDA, with no notification to the public to allow for debate, while making a handsome profit from this brutalization of wildlife. Former pilot and aviation expert Ken Paskar has been outspoken against these slaughters: "One can make the area around airports less attractive to birds, using falconry, sonic repellents and other measures.

Killing animals when other more effective and humane methods are available is unconscionable.' Several methods for avoiding more slaughters will be discussed, including initiating landscaping less desirable for geese, egg oiling, fencing and humane disbursal techniques. Also in attendance will be Master Sgt Robert Schwarzler from Stewart Airport Base, who will attempt to justify the supposed 'need' for getting rid of the geese at all; and Rob Quadagna, inventor of the Geesebusters system, which involves pseudo-predator and whistle training.

Kiley Blackman, founder of Westchester4Geese, said, 'There is a for-profit war being waged against wildlife by the USDA, and they must be reined in. They're killing multitudes of geese, turkeys, and other species and lying to the public about why each must be killed. We have entered a weird looking-glass era where planes have the right to fly but birds don't. Wildlife was here before us and has been driven out of their homes by urban sprawl...but they have the right to live on this earth without some rogue agency doing unchecked slaughters. The public, too, has to start learning how to peacefully share this earth with all its residents and not be 'the bullies on the playground. USDA/Wildlife Services lies to the public about the efficacy of non-lethal methods because the big money is in long-term slaughter contracts. They make 125 MILLION taxpayer-dollars per year, over and above their govt allowance; legislation allows WS to collect this money and return it to the program rather than to the general funds of the U.S. Treasury - which means into their employees and bosses pockets, benefit programs, bonuses, raises, etc.

'Technology has gone through the roof in the last 10 years: It is grossly unacceptable that an airport gets to order the annihilation of birds seven miles away, with no effort toward improving their aircraft via radar and other methods that have been used successfully elsewhere; it is unacceptable that they attempt to justified a slaughter at the airport near Cornwall NY, 'to avoid bird strikes' by citing an article that in fact placed the blame for a plane crash on an error by air traffic control. The USDA shouldn't be on the Cornwall Goose Mgmt committee anyway - they're not residents and this is a major conflict of interest. Their lies were in evidence again recently in Staten Island, where they baselessly cited 'hybrid' turkeys as the necessity for killing them instead of relocating them. Westchester4Geese has met with two congresspersons, requesting legislation be created that would require this agency to provide information on humane alternatives, and mandate that adequate advance notice be provided to communities well before any of these slaughters, to allow for public debate, possible court interference and full disclosure of this agencies' complicity and profiteering by their actions.'

For more, visit Westchester4Geese