??????? Geese ?????

I don't know exactly what's happening with the geese, except that I only saw 4 of them today - one swimming, three flying low. there are some incredibly wrong and misleading writings about the geese right now, now that they are molting and vulnerable. Some moron named Andrew Burman, writing for AOL travel, has an astonishing collection of misinformation about them. He claims that someone started killing the geese in 2009. WRONG! It was 2010, when there were hundreds of them in the park - too many, I thought. He claims the scandal was a few geese landing in a landfill. WRONG!! It was 100's of them being murdered in the middle of the night, with no warning, no knowledge from the parks Dept., and then the murderers lying about for a week. He claims it was an air traffic safety thing. WRONG!! The Park geese were RESIDENTIAL. This means they stayed here, flew low from one end of the lake to the other, and endangered NO planes at all. The really dangerous ones were the ones at Gateway, right next to JFK, but they are federally protected and cannot be killed.

And then there's the N.Y. Times, who have a delightful (this is sarcasm) article about how someone is planning to kidnap the c. 25 geese from the park, drive them to Pennsylvania, then kill them and feed them to some homeless people there. ARE THEY SERIOUS?? Is this the stupidist idea ever? How many hundreds of dollars will this cost, to feed some poor homeless people a bunch of stressed out geese? Do we really want our beautiful Park to become a butcher shop?

FACT: It was not the Parks Dept. who had the geese killed. It was Bloomberg, and apparently he didn't even bother to tell the Parks Dept. about it.

FACT: There are very few geese this year. There are no piles of goose poop. No geese are attacking humans. This is a beautiful opportunity for Brooklyn children to learn a little about wildlife.

The Park was beautiful today except for the complete chaos, misinformation, confusion, and possibly death of the geese.

Today at the Bark

It was FIDO's Coffee Bark today, a monthly gathering of dogs and humans, with coffee and snacks for both. We walked all the way to Park Slope (and back, later) to attend. They were also selling doggie clothing along with membership renewals. JJ, of course, needs no clothing, since she loves to roll around in the snow to cool off, even on the coldest days. We thought about getting her a raincoat, but they didn't have her size and besides, we figure she's entitled to opt for short walks in the rain. But we did get an adorable, sorry, MANLY little sheepskin coat for our daughter's Australian Terrier, Chewie. He feels the cold. Complete with a pocket.

The Park: still only the car road and horse trail cleared, and of course the Greg Mocker Path. Ran into Ed and Anne, who said that after the big snow on Jan. 28, the Mocker Path (all 30 feet of it) was cleared by the 29th! I can no longer call it the Greg Mocker Memorial Path, since someone who reads this asked me if Greg had died. GREG MOCKER IS NOT DEAD - HE'S VERY MUCH ALIVE AND DOING GREAT THINGS, AS ANYONE WHO WATCHES HIS NEWS REPORTS ON WPIX CHANNEL 11 KNOWS. Just wanted to make that clear. Too damn easy to start silly rumors. Remember "The walrus is Paul?"

I noted that someone was celebrating Chinese New Year in the Park by leaving one of those Chinese plastic plaid bags in the lake. (see photo). I mean, must we? really?

The more I think about the N.Y. Times article justifying the geese killing, the angrier I get. Protecting ornamental plantings? What ornamental plantings? The only ones I've seen are the phragmites, and the Parks Dept. is constantly (excuse my language) bitching about how they're invasive and unwelcome. The other justification is protecting the water supply. THE PROSPECT PARK LAKE IS NOT AND NEVER HAS BEEN THE CITY'S WATER SUPPLY!!!!!!!!! Just saying. Too often, the first response to any problem is "Kill something." Geese, Congresswoman Giffords ... history is way too full.

Sorry. It was a beautiful day in the Park this morning.

Rumors, innuendo, gossip and hearsay

Time for a bit of a reboot on this blog. The story of the dead geese is everywhere, the Times, Brooklyn paper, on NPR (Thank you Leonard Lopate), the Ditmas Park Blog. I feel like I have missed the boat a bit, since we were away for a week. Also (true confession) my leg has still been bothering me, so I don't always go to the park, but rely on Ber and JJ and their reports. Anyway, I'm getting plenty of 2nd and 3rd hand information about this horrible event. As a former lawyer, I really do think that hearsay is inherently unreliable. However, Here's a roundup of some of what I'm hearing.

The geese were rounded up at 4 AM on Thursday - under cover of darkness - then put on trucks and gassed with carbon dioxide, supposedly a humane kill method which does leave the meat edible. The Parks department immediately started lying about the lack of geese. "they flew away." Impossible since 1) they were molting and 2) the goslings can't fly yet - no wings, just fuzz. The goose with the arrow in its neck, which the parks Dept. was trying to save a short while ago, was included.

The claim is that geese were removed to protect the planes, to create a 7 mile no-fly zone around JFK. Prospect is more than 7 miles from JFK - more like 12-13 miles. Supposedly, the people who did the gassing were originally planning to kill the geese at Jamaica Bay (right next to the airport). The Gateway people wouldn't let them, so they came to Prospect Park, since they had all the equipment anyway. Again, THIS IS RUMOR AND HEARSAY, NOT PROVEN FACT.

Commentators in all the papers, blogs, radio, are having their say, often very strongly and on both sides. The geese must die - people are more important. The geese must live - anything else is murder. And everything else in between.

The real problem: the Parks Dept. cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Their decision-making is secretive and surreal. The geese had a definite fan base and will be missed. Yes, there were too many of them for the space, but surely there was a better solution, if only the Parks Dept. had bothered to look for it. That's really all I think I want to say on this.

The Good News: I finally went to a doctor (an orthopedist) about my leg. As my daughter tells me, the first step is to admit you have a problem. The second step is to put yourself in the hands of a higher power. the higher power in this case is a rehabilitation person. Since my leg has been hurting, I've been using my "good leg" more. Now I need to rebuild the "bad leg," then it will stop hurting. So I shouldn't worry ab out "overdoing" it and injuring myself more. Nice to know. So I'll be in the park more, and I think I'll stick to what I actually see when I'm there. No more gossip,l rumor, innuendo, hearsay. Opinions, yes. the fun of blogging.

What I saw in the park this morning:

We only went as far as the Peninsula. We saw 6 geese. Four in one group, looking like they are starting a tiny flock, and two others. There may be more in other parts of the lake. We saw two adult swans in the lake. Tomorrow we'll make it over the the Boathouse and check on the rest of the Swan family. The paths are looking fairly clean - many trash cans set out now. All the cans that FIDO bought that were being kept in the skating building are now finally out. However, the paths into the phragmites are overgrown and truly disgusting - people are using them as toilets - and I don't mean just the smell of pee. There is one disgusting photo. You are warned not to enlarge it if it will disturb you. The fishing line receptacles are all full. Will they be emptied? Inquiring minds want to know. And the ducks look quite happy to have the lake back.