Did you catch the movie, Sully, when it was aired on television recently? Briefly, it was an account of how Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot of a Canadian Airbus A320 brought the aircraft with 155 passengers on board down safely on New York’s Hudson River after a bird-strike had incapacitated both engines.
Now it seems, the British government would like to inform the Canadian goose (the breed responsible for the downing of the aircraft), which by the way defecates every three to four minutes and produces 45kg of excrement a week, that it is no longer welcome there. And what’s more the state of New York has also cooked this poor bird’s goose so to speak, branding the species a menace and has now declared war on them.
Not only do they pose a threat to jetliners but they attack people, destroy vegetation and pollute drinking water because their droppings contain ecoli, the authorities say.
Draft proposals to resettle or eliminate the Canadian goose population in both countries are supported by some conservationists but have sparked an uproar among animal rights activists.
In England, the Canadian goose, apparently the world champion defecator, (the Guinness Book of Records is silent on the subject) fouls the verdant rolling meadows, manicured lawns and lush flower beds of London’s parks, the department of environment (DOE) says and agrees with their US counterparts that they are aggressive to humans and occasionally splatter the odd low-flying aircraft.
The goose is also evidently equally adept at making more geese.
The large bird’s “remarkable powers of excretion and reproduction” demand a long-term management plan the DOE said, otherwise Britain’s goose population of 60,000 could double in 10 years.
The environmental problem is exacerbated by the fact that the goose has no natural enemies and is protected by Britain’s Wildlife and Countryside Act and European rules.
Publication of the DOE article threatened to fan the controversy between the government and goose lovers and several television script writers.
Apparently a scheme to rescue 150 Canadian geese from London’s Battersea Park and give them refuge on a peer of the realm’s estate in Sussex was apparently abruptly halted when council marksmen shot the birds dead.
So whereas in some parts of the world, Canadian geese may be prized for their beauty and in England, protected by the king, the state of New York and England’s department of the environment certainly want nothing more to do with them and seek to obliterate these birds or at least ensure “responsible ownership” of them.
