Taxpayers subsidizing
wild life extermination program, probe shows
MARY LOU SIMMS
By MARY LOU SIMMS
The trucks pulled up
at dawn. PollyAnna, a year-old disabled goose whose wing
feathers were growing back, was asleep when the trappers
approached.
Not long after,
Debbie Dangerfield, a real estate agent and 16-year resident of
River's Edge, a sprawling residential complex in Charleston,
S.C., was leaving her condo to check on PollyAnna when she
noticed she was missing. Also gone were a dozen or so geese
parents and their young.
The crippled geese
also seemed to have vanished: Nibbles, a young gander with a
damaged wing; Limp, so-named because of an upper-leg injury, and
VeeVee, the victim of fishing-line entrapment.
As Dangerfield
approached the entrance to the complex, she noticed two USDA
trucks pulling away from the guard house and broke into a dead
run, reaching the vehicles as they slowed to accommodate speed
bumps. She begged the drivers to pull over, peering inside one
of the trucks as they did.
There she saw
PollyAnna crammed into a crate with half a dozen other geese.
"The geese were
frantic," Dangerfield recalls. "They had been shoved into
crates, stacked like pancakes, defecating on each other. I was
begging and pleading for them to at least let me have the few
crippled geese we had rescued."
Eventually the
police came and the River's Edge management agreed to let her
keep one bird.
"They were just
trying to appease me," she says, "to keep me quiet so other
residents wouldn't hear the commotion and decide to
investigate." PollyAnna now shares the backyard of a
rehabilitation center with a crippled goose named Angel,
occasionally serving as a good-will ambassador for her species.
The story is one of
many. In Delafield, Wis., lifelong resident Jim Pfeil tried to
keep the feds from gassing an aging crippled goose named Stumpy
this summer, offering to match the $6,500 slaughter fee if city
officials would allow an animal protection group to manage the
geese instead.
A few years ago,
Pfeil rushed Stumpy to a wildlife center where veterinarians
removed a bullet through the neck. Recently, he watched in tears
as workers crowded Stumpy into a crate with her mate and four or
five other geese. "I almost wish I hadn't seen it, it was so
awful," he says. "But I feel compelled to tell her story." He
says the roundup lasted four hours, from 8 a.m. to noon, and
that some of the geese seemed already dead by the time they were
trucked to an undisclosed location. Mayor Ed McAleer declined to
discuss the event but says the meat was sent to a food pantry.
And in Brooklyn's
Prospect Park, residents set up a vigilante-style "goose watch"
to protect a trio of newborns dubbed "the miracle birds,"
hatched when volunteers treating eggs (a form of birth control),
missed a nest.
Wildlife Services is
the little-known branch of the USDA deemed largely responsible
for geese slaughters coast to coast. Buried under several layers
of bureaucracy, Wildlife Services prefers to stay under the
radar.
However, a copy of a
2010 report obtained through a Freedom of Information Act
request indicates that U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing a $126.5
million program that exterminates more than 4 million wild
animals annually, including thousands of geese.
The agency also has
come under fire for its use of sodium cyanide, a poison placed
in devices called M-44's, which its literature says is used to
control coyotes, wild dogs and foxes preying on livestock.
"Many animals killed
by M-44's are non-targeted species such as raccoons, bears and
household pets," says Brooks Fahy of Predator Defense, a
national conservation group, who condemned the agency's use of
poisons on a CNN HLN Jane Velez-Mitchell show in March.
"There are years of
outmoded thinking," he says, "and leaders from an old regime
that can't seem to transition to newer, more humane ways of
managing wildlife."
Carol Bannerman, a
Wildlife Services media specialist, declined to respond.
Wildlife Services is
charged with overseeing the nation's wildlife conflicts
involving agricultural and property damage, and human health and
safety. Geese are blamed for creating a "nuisance" by defecating
on municipal lawns and golf courses.
"We understand the
need to manage geese populations," says John Hadidian, suburban
wildlife director of The Humane Society of the United States,
the nation's largest animal protection group. "It's the approach
that is controversial. Capturing geese in a way that is deemed
terrorizing is very disturbing to people."
Geese are rounded up
and gassed during the summer molt, from late June through early
August - unable to escape as new flight feathers replace worn.
According to its
literature, however, the agency's mission "is to resolve
conflicts in a manner that allows people and wildlife to coexist
peacefully."
Dangerfield,
remembering PollyAnna's narrow escape, would like to know how
that works. So might those who witnessed the deaths of long-time
community geese in lethal roundups that left residents in tears.
"The human distress was almost equal to that of the geese,"
remembers Hadidian, of a slaughter in Olney, Md.
In its literature,
Wildlife Services tells the public that it euthanizes geese
humanely, following guidelines of the American Veterinary
Medical Association.
However, videos,
photos and eye-witness accounts tell a different story.
Videos show trappers
grabbing geese by the throats, handling them roughly, throwing
them into crates, parents trampling their young in the process.
"They jam them into
those gas chambers until they can't get another feather inside,"
says Betty Butler, a researcher from Monmouth, N.J. "You can
hear the geese thrashing and thumping trying to escape."
Wildlife Services
has police cordon off areas where the geese will be executed,
she adds, to keep the public from interfering.
Such actions have
prompted a growing divide over how geese populations should be
managed.
Increasingly,
communities are advocating a humane approach. Some communities
want to keep their geese but curb population growth by
(humanely) treating nest eggs with corn oil. Others hire
companies to clean up after the geese if feces is an issue, or
as in Ballwin, Mo. or Helena, Ala., incorporate its removal into
daily park maintenance. Others want the geese gone but without
harming them.
Several communities
have organized grassroots efforts to keep the feds at bay.
-In Jackson, Miss.,
200 geese were scheduled for removal at the nearby 33,000-acre
Ross Barnett Reservoir, when Justin Fritscher, a reporter for
The Clarion-Ledger, decided to find out where the geese were
being shipped. "The local governing body of the reservoir
discussed having them removed at one of its meetings," he said.
"I took that to mean moved somewhere else ..." However, when he
called the USDA, he learned that the geese weren't being trucked
to a paradise in the wilds of central Mississippi, they were
being gassed. When the story broke, residents voiced such
outrage that the proposed kill and another planned in a nearby
suburb of Brandon were both canceled.
-In Bergen County,
N.J., Freeholders, the legislative body that advises the county
executive, passed a resolution banning slaughters at county
parks after a protest. "When residents brought the actions to
our attention," says Freeholders chairperson Jim Carroll, "we
told the parks department to 'cease and desist'"
-In Brooklyn, N.Y.,
residents formed a task force, For the Love of Geese in Prospect
Park, to protect new geese that began arriving after Wildlife
Services killed some 350 geese and goslings. "Parishioners in my
neighborhood were visibly upset," recalls Monsignor Keirnan
Harrington of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. "We were
stunned," says Mary Beth Artz of Brooklyn, one of the group's
organizers. "We're a tight-knit community and the geese were
part of that." The feds had initially slaughtered geese at
locations within a seven-mile kill zone of JFK and LaGuardia
airports in response to the USAir-geese collision the year
before. "But Prospect Park falls outside the kill zone," recalls
Artz. "So we thought our geese were safe."
-In Bend, Ore.,
where 109 geese were slain last summer, gift shop owner Forest
Fell organized a successful grassroots effort to prevent future
slaughters at Drake Park. "We don't want to be known as a
community that kills its wildlife," he says.
-In Mount Laurel,
N.J., an informal group was organized after Wildlife Services
slaughtered geese at Laurel Acres Park. "There was no reason to
kill them," says Sharon Pawlak of Medford. "Now the town has
hired a border collie company but 133 geese are dead."
Wildlife Services,
however, doesn't act alone.
"Someone has to
request assistance," says media specialist Gail Keirn from its
Colorado office. "We just don't go in and start killing on our
own."
Slaughters are
usually initiated by public officials or others in authority,
says Pawlak, who has negotiated geese conflicts in New Jersey.
Then comes the
uproar, she adds.
"Officials are
embarrassed when residents want to know what happened to their
geese," she says. "It didn't dawn on them when they contracted
with the USDA that it might be controversial."
River's Edge, the
setting for PollyAnna's ordeal, is an example of how slaughters
come to be.
In mid-week, the
management of the residential complex posted a notice for an
emergency meeting to discuss the geese. The complex has almost
500 registered owners.
"I knew they meant
business," Dangerfield recalls. "But there were so few people at
the meeting it couldn't be construed as representative of all of
the tenants."
Participants voted
to kill the geese, 14 to 7. Two days later, the feds came.
The River's Edge
management declined to discuss the slaughter.
However, Carol
Bannerman of Wildlife Services' national office emailed that
"the manager had not given permission for release (of the
crippled birds) on the property."
Wildlife
rehabilitator Beth Mowder insists that she informed the
management several times that she would remove the crippled
geese if there was ever a problem.
"These were geese
that posed no harm to anyone but needed a quiet environment
where they could live out their lives," she says.
In its literature,
Wildlife Services recommends an integrated approach to managing
geese, citing "community involvement as an important part of a
decision (to euthanize)."
However, officials
in some communities say they don't recall non-lethal measures
having been an option.
-In Jackson, Miss.,
John Sigman, executive director of the Pearl River Water Supply
District, says he was misled from the start. "When we first
talked to the USDA, we didn't fully understand the direction
they were taking us," he says. "I assumed, wrongfully, that the
geese were being relocated." However, Patrick Smith, a
supervisor in its Stoneville office, says he "never used any
term other than euthanasia in addressing reservoir officials."
When Sigman found out that the geese were being gassed, he says,
he asked if they could be relocated instead. "They agreed," he
says, "telling us we would have to pay mileage and other fees to
which we agreed." A few days later, he says, the feds reneged on
that agreement. Smith says the reservoir has since rebuffed
efforts to introduce humane efforts. Asked why those efforts
weren't initially offered, he was silent.
-In Delavan Lake,
Wis., township manager Dorothy Burwell says she authorized the
slaughter of 100 geese after a Wildlife Services presentation
convinced her that "killing was the way to go." Now she has
teamed up with the Lakeland Animal Shelter to humanely oversee
the new geese that have since arrived. "The problems don't seem
insurmountable," says shelter executive director Kristen Perry,
who organized a volunteer corps that will clean up after the
geese through Labor Day.
-At Lake Harbison,
S.C., near Columbia, humane measures were never brought up, says
Sid Crumpton of the Harbison Community Association. As a result,
some 200 geese were killed in one of the state's most
controversial slaughters. Today a humane program is in place to
oversee 75 new geese. "We're trying to do the right thing," he
says.
A follow-up of
communities where geese were killed also suggests that such
actions are ineffective.
"Slaughters don't
work because geese pond-hop," says Denise Savageau, town
conservation director in Greenwich, Conn. "As soon as a location
becomes vacant, new geese move in."
In Sayreville, N.J.,
however, borough council member Lisa Eicher wasn't able to
convince other officials to vote against gassing geese.
"We've spent about
$60,000 in the last five years," she says, "and still the geese
keep coming. Isn't it time we tried something else?"
Wildlife Services
also says in its literature, that geese pose "a serious health
threat." However, geese present no more of a health risk than
any other species, including cats and dogs, says Dr. Julia
Murphy, public health veterinarian for the Virginia Department
of Health.
"Certainly there's a
possibility of pathogens (disease-causing bacteria) in fecal
material but as a particular risk factor in and of itself, there
simply is no direct link," says Murphy.
You would have to
ingest droppings to experience discomfort (such as mild
gastro-intestinal cramps or upset stomach), she adds,
recommending routine hygiene washing hands or keeping close tabs
on youngsters too young to tell feces from dirt as protective
measures.
Waterfowl specialist
Tim Ford, vice president of research at The University of New
England, says he knows of no studies linking Canada geese to
human health problems.
"The science just
isn't there to support that reasoning," he says.
Documents obtained
through a Freedom of Information request also indicate that the
agency profits from its outside contracts.
In 2010, the agency
earned almost $70 million almost 60 percent of its overall
budget in part from contracts such as those at Brooklyn's
Prospect Park.
(Its reports show
that Wildlife Services also kills millions of coyotes, blue
herons, wolves, beavers, starlings, and other species through
trapping, poison and aerial gunning.)
The agency denied a
Freedom of Information request to disclose the amount of revenue
from gassing geese last year, saying it does not keep such
records.
However a review of
15 locations indicates that geese slaughters range from $6,500
in Delafield to $347,000 for a three-year geese management
contract in Union County, N.J.
Nor would the agency
disclose the amount of its 2010 joint contract with the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey and the city of New York
for removal of hundreds of city geese, including those at
Prospect Park. However a Freedom of Information request
indicates that Wildlife Services was paid $100,000.
Slaughters are also
quick and easy; humane programs take longer.
However,
participants stand by the results.
Jan Herbert, who
runs a geese management program for the parks department in
Rockford, Ill., estimates that she and her staff have oiled
about 18,000 nest eggs along a seven-mile stretch of the Rock
River, reducing the overall geese population to fewer than 300,
down from some 1,200 geese.
Similar successes
have been achieved in Seattle, Detroit and St. Louis, where
volunteers are now oiling thousands of eggs every spring.
In Seattle, for
example, where thousands of geese were executed a decade ago,
slaughters are now almost non-existent.
"Wildlife Services
is still lurking in the background," says Hadidian, "but
generally the geese in Seattle are safe."
The Obama
administration is proposing a $10 million budget cut for the
USDA's Wildlife Services. Critics, including Camilla H. Fox,
wildlife consultant of the Animal Welfare Institute, say
reductions should be deeper, and funding for gassing geese and
its use of poisons cut altogether.
"The program fosters
a dependence on taxpayer-funded assistance instead of promoting
effective long-term solutions," says Fox.
Wayne Pacelle,
president and CEO of the HSUS, says he would like to see
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack turn Wildlife Services into a
humane agency.
"We need a federal
agency to help resolve wildlife conflicts humanely," he says.
"Not an agency that is basically a contract killer for the
states ..."
William Clay, who
runs Wildlife Services, did not respond to requests to discuss
the agency's direction.
Meanwhile, a growing
number of communities continue to leave the feds out of the
equation, following principles of the HSUS and GeesePeace, the
nation's leaders in implementing humane measures at little or no
cost.
GeesePeace director
David Feld is currently working with the entire state of Rhode
Island.
"Not everyone will
participate," he says, "but we'll make our mark."
And Hot Springs
Village, Ark., near Little Rock, the nation's largest gated
community, remains a honkers' paradise.
"Word got out in the
spring that we had discussed killing some 600 geese and there
was total uproar," says Steve White, director of planning, who
is now partnering with the HSUS.
"What is needed is a
new paradigm ..." says wildlife consultant Fox. "If the money
and efforts used to kill ... were redirected toward
cost-effective, non-lethal methods, such as public education and
better landscape development, conflicts would be significantly
reduced."
This report was made
possible by a grant from The Fund for Investigative Journalism
in Washington, D.C.