From wildlife refuge to table: A story about the culled Jamaica Bay geese
Geese. Minty Grover
4:43 pm Sep. 19, 201216
Since 2009, when Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenburger had to land in the Hudson due to a bird strike by a flock of geese, the federal Department of Agriculture has been doing its best to keep the local goose population down.
In the latest regular cull by the USDA, on July 9, more than 700 Canada Geese were removed from the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, near John F. Kennedy International Airport.
In past years, the geese were euthanized and disposed of in landfills. This time, reports said, the cull process included a rage-mitigating charitable gesture: meat from the birds would be donated to food pantries and soup kitchens in New York State instead.
The reports contained no further detail about the animals’ path from wildlife sanctuary to table. When and where were they to be killed? How would the meat be processed? Where would it all end up, and in what form?
A call to the USDA yielded answers to some of the questions.
According to Carol Bannerman, a department spokeswoman, past goose roundups ended with the animals being gassed by carbon dioxide, and the bodies dumped in a landfill. The meat, obviously, went to waste.
Officials wanted to do something different this time, she said, and knew of other states, like Pennsylvania, where donations of goose meat were common. It also turned out to be the case that many food banks—warehouse-type institutions that distribute food to hundreds of pantries and soup kitchens—in New York State frequently received donations of wild game like deer from hunters.
The people who run the food banks confirmed this, although they said they don't get wild goose-meat donations as regularly.
According to Bannerman, the city’s wild geese got approval for human consumption last year, and the geese that were captured and killed in 2011 were donated to food charities in Pennsylvania, as the system for processing goose meat there is already up and running. This year, the USDA found a state-approved processor in New York, in time for the most recent culling.
Bannerman said food banks are always happy with donations of meat.
“One of the types of food that is very hard to come by in food charities is proteins,” said Bannerman.
DON RIEPE, WHO OVERSEES THE JAMAICA BAY GUARDIAN program, a state-funded coastal conservation operation in the bay, was present the day the geese were captured.
“They did it as humanely as possible,” he said. “They rounded them up and put them in individual crates, like you transport any live product.”
Riepe said the department was allowed to take up to 1000 geese. The number ended up being closer to 700 because that was all they could catch, he said.
“It’s not easy,” said Riepe. “They only have a certain timeframe when they can get them when they’re flightless.”
He said this is during a period of several weeks when Canada Geese are molting their flight feathers. Because not every goose molts at the same time, he said some of them were still able to fly away.
The USDA selected areas where there were large concentrations of geese, which were in two ponds of the wildlife refuge, said Riepe.
“I believe they went out in boats and got them to come on shore,” he said. “Small boats. Might have been kayaks.”
Once they were on land, he said, the geese were herded together onto a trail, which was then closed off on both ends.
“They used a caging of something like a snow fencing or plastic netting,” said Riepe. “Then they just picked them up and put them in crates and carted them off.”
As one of the people charged with protecting the coastal environment of Jamaica Bay, Riepe says he has faced complaints suggesting he rolled over too easily by allowing the USDA to take the birds.
“It’s not nice, no one likes it,” he said. “But what are you going to do? If a plane comes down as a result of a bird strike, a goose strike, people could be harmed.”
In the end, Riepe said, although he wasn’t pleased about the culling of the birds, he understood the reasons for it.
“We’re trying to strike a balance that will hopefully allow planes and birds to co-exist,” he said.
AFTER THE GEESE WERE CAPTURED IN JAMAICA Bay, they were delivered to a meat processor upstate on the same day, according to the USDA.
The department wouldn’t release the name of the processor, or the names of the food charities that were receiving the goose meat. Bannerman, the spokeswoman, said when names have been released in the past, the groups have come under pressure to reject donations of meat on grounds that the geese weren’t edible because of contamination.
I called each of the eight regional food banks in New York State several weeks after the cull, but none of them had heard about receiving a consignment of wild geese from the city yet. Most added that they usually didn’t hear about receiving a donation until it was almost ready to pick up. The Food Bank for Westchester, however, said it was receiving a donation of around 500 Canada Geese from nearby Sprain Lake Golf Course—also supervised by the USDA.
Once the Westchester geese were delivered, the food bank said the name on the packages it received was Kroll Farm. Anthony Kroll, a third-generation farmer, runs this farm and meat processing business with his girlfriend. Bannerman later confirmed to me that the Westchester geese and the city’s geese were processed at the same time and place.
Kroll said the geese that arrived were of different ages, young and old. He and the seven or eight workers he’d hired started processing them immediately.
“They’re stuck in those cages, get it over with,” said Kroll, who cares for his own farm animals. “When they’re uncomfortable, just get it over with.”
He said he didn’t want to go into specifics of exactly how the geese were butchered due to fear of getting into trouble with animal-rights groups, which he said has happened in the past.
“[The geese] come in. They’re live. We kill them in a humane way,” Kroll said.
After the geese are killed, the next step in the process is to remove the breasts, which Kroll said was the only part of the geese that was being used for meat. He said it was the best part and the rest of the goose was too tough to eat.
Kroll said after the breasts were removed, they were put into a chill tank with ice cubes and water to cool them down to a temperature of 40 degrees. Then the meat was put into a cooler, which is where it stayed overnight.
“We don’t fool around,” Kroll said. “He brings them at 12 o’clock and by 4 o’clock they’re done.”
The next morning the meat is packaged and put into freezers to be frozen solid and ready for pick-up, Kroll said. He said the whole process, from butchering to freezing, took 36 to 48 hours.
By July 27, three weeks after the Canada Geese from the city had been captured, the geese had been processed into goose breast meat portions. But they weren't ready for distribution.
ON AUGUST 2 AND 3, ACCORDING TO BANNERMAN, THE CITY-HARVESTED goose meat was delivered from the processor to the food charities. The department also said it delivered 450 pounds of goose meat to food charities in Westchester County on Aug. 3, confirming what the food bank in that region had said. But the USDA still wouldn’t release the name of the food bank that was receiving the geese from the city.
Again, I called the seven other food banks in the state, and finally the Food Bank of Central New York said it had received 640 pounds of goose meat on Aug 3. It was the only food bank other than the one in Westchester that received goose meat during this time.
The Central New York food bank also said after receiving the goose meat, the last 100 pounds was handed out less than two weeks later on Aug 16.
“It flies out of here,” said Peter Ricardo, who is in charge of procurement and purchasing at the food bank.
He said it was because animal protein is generally costly and not donated often enough, and that the USDA donating it at very little to no cost was, therefore, extremely welcome.
Ricardo said this shipment of goose meat was the third his food bank has received over the last nine years. He also said he could understand why meat from city geese would wind up upstate, because people in that area have more experience preparing meat from wild game.
“Wild geese meat or goose meat is very tough and very dry,” said Ricardo. “People in rural areas, especially like in upstate rural counties, for generations have been used to that because we hunt up here.”
He said it takes a lot of skill and know-how to prepare the meat.
“If you put that goose meat in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what it is or what to do with it, they would be very unhappy with the outcome,” Ricardo said. “You can get a good product out of it if you know what you’re doing.”
Ricardo, who is also a chef, said, “You would marinate the meat or you would grind it. Give it a long cooking method like hot pot. You have to make it more palatable.”
MAKING THE MEAT PALATABLE WASN'T THE ONLY concern. The packaged wild goose meat processed at Kroll Farm also came with warnings, said Jeanne Wilcox at the Food Bank for Westchester.
First, Wilcox said, the label on the package stated that the New York State Department of Health recommended no more than two meals of the wild geese per month because they may have been exposed to environmental contaminants. However, Wilcox said it was followed by an assurance that testing of the wild goose meat indicated that the contaminants should not be a human health concern.
There are environmental conservationists and food safety experts who disagree with that assessment, though.
Jeff Tittel, New Jersey chapter director of the Sierra Club, said he thinks it’s very likely that the meat from the wild geese, and more so from those taken from near the airport, is contaminated.
“When airplanes take off they spray jet fuel and when they land they release jet fuel,” said Tittel. “So do they really want that type of meat?”
Jean Grassman, associate professor of health and nutrition sciences at Brooklyn College, said a big issue with wild goose meat is a specific urban contaminant called polychlorinated biphenyl, or PCB.
“The concern is that they’re developmental toxicants,” Grassman said.
According to her, PCB levels are higher in aquatic systems, which is to say environments frequented by waterfowl like geese.
“The issue of contamination is a real possibility in wild fowl,” she said.
But the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said they have very thoroughly tested the meat from the wild geese and found it to be safe for human consumption.
“Over 15 years there were probably 150 to 200 pieces of meat that were tested,” said Bryan Swift, from the department’s wildlife resources division.
(The geese specifically from the wildlife refuge near the airport haven’t been tested, he said.)
The other warning that came with the packaged breast meat, Wilcox said, was that there was a possibility that the meat had birdshot—a type of shotgun shell, which could contain lead. The warning continued on, said Wilcox, advising that to avoid chipping teeth or swallowing the shell, anyone eating the meat should keep an eye out for shells while cutting it.
“Gee, thanks,” said Wilcox. “It makes you terrified to chew on it.”
However, as Ricardo said, his food bank has received the occasional donation of goose meat before, and he reiterates that it’s a matter of knowing what you’re dealing with.
“Again, when people are used to it, you can tell if there’s any shot in the muscle. It’s really not that hard to find,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it a danger, it’s just an awareness thing.”
Ricardo also added that the birdshot would have to specifically be in the breast, which he said wasn't usually where it ended up.
MOST OF THE PEOPLE I SPOKE TO WHO RUN FOOD BANKS said, without reservation, that they would have been very happy to receive donations of meat from wild geese.
Peter Braglia, from Long Island Cares, said, “People don’t understand wild game is so much more nutritious than what you can buy in the store. There’s no hormones given to these birds.”
He also said that he thought goose meat was delicious.
“Not for nothing, you know, 50 years ago goose was the standard for Christmas meals,” Braglia said.
He said he wanted to find out how his food bank could also be on the receiving end of wild goose meat donations.
“I wish I could have been part of it,” Braglia said. “I would have accepted it with open arms.”
I remember seeing a story about these Canada Geese years ago when they were befouling a golf course in Westchester and the concern was that they were ruining the aquifer. At the time they rounded them up and gassed them in the back of 18-wheelers, as I recall, and the geese were then destroyed. This program seems like a much better idea.
Did they also know that geese have diseases. Then to kill them to put the food for a food pantry. I for one would not slaughter them for any such reason.To see them suffer like that. When people find out why and how these birds were killed may make people wonder. I for one will not eat something 'gamey' on my dinner table. Be it geese, deer, or wild animal that is kiiled in humanely. People need to see what is going on . Not just in N.Y. or even in Pa. All over. I wish you folks would come here to Ohio to speak I love the geese plain and simple!
It's amazing the USA didn't start thinking about geese and planes in 1995 when an American air force plane hit Canada geese in Alaska on take off, crashed, and 24 airmen were killed. You wait until a plane hits migrating geese, makes a HUGE splash in the news, then use that as the excuse to callously declare war on innocent resident Canada geese.
It is absolutely contemptible. The USDA did NOT try to manage the goose population any other way prior to killing them or they would have succeeded- like many other communities do.
BTW,,,Canadian food banks will not accept wild Canada goose. Neither do we round them up and gas them. Because it does NOTHING for air safety.
1995 - 24 airmen killed and you did nothing. BTW...the airbase in Alaska new geese were living on the base...since that no airport has birds living on the airport. There has not been another fatal crash since then.
I am so disgusted with what you are doing to these birds I don't even have words. The USDA is absolutely corrupt and disgusting.
Thanks to Minty Grover for actually doing some digging.
Unfortunately, this piece raises even more questions.
Why, for example, does Kroll refuse to say exactly how the geese died? "7 or 8 workers" to kill more than 1,000 geese doesn't sound either "humane" or like the "euthanasia" that a vet performs on a dying pet.
"Those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing" -- including method of death.
Its fascinating that a chef suggests methods for cooking the "donated" breast meat. How many poor people have crock pots, fancy cooking paraphenalia, recipe books and condiments to try and make this stuff palatable?
It seems all the marinating and cooking in the world will not remove lead bird shot and other possible contaminates.
Is this what we think of the poor that we would "donate" stuff that can potentially break their teeth no matter how much they cook it? Who buys them dentures?
One also wonders why the first 40 geese rounded up by USDA from a nearby landfill were sent to a processing plant 6 hours away in Dansvile, NY only 4 days before?
Do they just drum up plans as they go along?
Bannerman of USDA is a piece of work.
She says the geese are "safe for human consumption" based upon random tests conducted on OTHER slain geese over the past 15 years.
These are geese who routinely feed on pesticide treated grasses and are exposed to mercury, lead and PCBs on a daily basis.
Did the reporter ask Ms. Bannerman when was the last time she sat down to feast on urban park geese? Perhaps the reporter should check Ms. Bannerman's teeth.
According to the Smithsonian Institute that tested the bird feathers in the engine of Sully's plane, it was only two geese and the geese were deemed to be MIGRATORY geese from LABRADOR, CANADA.
In other words, USDA could have rounded up and killed EVERY goose in New York and the USA and it would NOT have prevented that incident.
It should also be noted that the plane had an engine stall "incident" just two days before and almost had to emergency land (as reported on CNN). That incident had nothing to do with geese.
This nonsense about Sully's plane is just a convenient ruse for wiping out geese in NYC.
Let's get real.
The Smithsonian Institute which tested the feathers in Sully's plane determined them to be from TWO MIGRATORY geese from LABRADOR, CANADA.
In other words, USDA could have rounded up and killed EVERY resident goose in this country and it would NOT have prevented this incident!
Moreover, the plane had suffered a similar "engine stall" problem just two days before that had nothing to do with geese and almost had to emergency land (reported on CNN).
The Sully plane incident is serving as a convenient ruse to wipe out resident geese in NYC.
The truth is planes hit birds all the time and don't end up in rivers.
Let's get real, folks and realize when both we and the geese are being "had."
The Smithsonian Institute which tested the feathers in Sully's plane determined them to be from TWO MIGRATORY geese from LABRADOR, CANADA.
In other words, USDA could have rounded up and killed EVERY resident goose in this country and it would NOT have prevented this incident!
Moreover, the plane had suffered a similar "engine stall" problem just two days before that had nothing to do with geese and almost had to emergency land (reported on CNN).
The Sully plane incident is serving as a convenient ruse to wipe out resident geese in NYC.
The truth is planes hit birds all the time and don't end up in rivers.
Let's get real, folks and realize when both we and the geese are being "had."
Thank you for writing this important article. So much misinformation has been given to the public--and it raises troublesome questions about what has happened here.
It's no wonder the USDA and its slaughter subcontractors are uneasy telling the truth about what happened to these resident Canada geese, who were scapegoated for political effect. The geese were corralled and stuffed into small plastic crates and inhumanely transported on what surely must have been one of the hottest days of the year.
How many geese went where? How were they killed? (The word used in the story, "butchered," is incorrectly used here but probably intentionally so, because it hints at violence and that is an apt description). Not knowing the answers to these questions, does anyone really think that Kroll and his hastily hired workers got the job of killing done humanely and in accordance with slaughter regulations in New York State? (In New York, the oversight of custom slaughterhouses that handle poultry and/or red meat is subcontracted to the NYDAM Division of Food Safety Inspection). Does anyone think that the goose breasts are safe for consumption? Or this something that is acceptable for the disadvantaged but not for the public at large?
At least we got a nugget of truth from Kroll, who says the geese are "stuck in those cages, get it over with ... when they’re uncomfortable, just get it over with.” He is correct that they were uncomfortable. They suffered.
Are you aware that the assault on Canada geese is a ruse, motivated by the recurrent revenue stream that the USDA gets for this kind of contract killing? And USDA has assured itself that the geese will need to be culled (that is a euphemism for slaughtered) for generations to come, because culling of this sort does very little if anything to reduce populations of Canada geese. Same as with feral or other outdoor cats--killing them does not stabilize or reduce the population; killing is not the answer.
Which raises the question--what is ACTUALLY being done for air safety? Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, has said that New York City has shown a "lack of concern" and a "cavalier attitude" with regard to aviation safety. After the so-called 'Miracle on the Hudson," the NTSB made more than 30 recommendations to the FAA for improving air safety; none of these involved "culling" or killing of wildlife, including geese. So, how is it exactly that we are supposed to feel safer because some geese were killed, when in fact the scientific and technological advances that could provide authentic and measurable improvement in aviation safety are not being implemented?
These concerns are only the tip of the iceberg but I'll stop for now.
I look forward to seeing you do more on this topic. After all, these violent roundups occurred on public lands and yet there was no transparency as to when they were being carried out. The slaughters were not humane, as I think the reporter knows. This is a sad state of affairs and I am not pleased that my tax dollars were misappropriated to carry out this misguided plan.
@ djbens - how is that a "better" plan? It still involves unnecessary cost and extreme cruelty. If people think geese are "befouling" their silly golf course, there are methods of cleaning the course without damaging the grass and without suffocating geese to death. There are also humane methods of deterring the geese from being on the golf course.
Moreover, there's no scientific evidence that goose feces in the concentration found on your average golf course would contaminate an aquifer. That's yet another lame justification people use for killing geese. It's also a bit hypocritical for people running a golf course to site geese as polluters of the environment when golf courses are so environmentally irresponsible.
This article is quite thorough. I don't think it can be emphasized enough that there is NO scientific basis for killing these geese. There's no evidence it's necessary, and there's no evidence it makes any difference in airline safety. According to the FAA's own statistics, there have only been about 22 wildlife strikes involving geese in the past TEN years between LaGuardia and Kennedy airports, and the vast majority of those caused little to no damage. The one destroyed aircraft was the well-known "miracle on the Hudson", and as mentioned above, there was trouble with one of the engines before. Also, those were migratory geese, not the resident geese that are being slaughtered.
And a last note: these are urban wildlife living on some incredibly polluted waterways. I shudder to think what kinds of contaminants are in that meat. But it doesn't matter, right? They're being feed to the poor! Just as long as the people conducting the killings can feel good about some part of it, that's all that really matters. Sheesh.
How dare geese choose to stop over or live in a wildlife refuge! What were they thinking?
The claim is that
1) geese cause cause planes to crash; and,
2) the government has decided to kill geese (in a wildlife sanctuary) to prevent planes from crashing.
The article doesn't ask if either of these statements is true. (Not a single passenger, of tens of millions, has died this past year due to plane crashes resulting from hitting geese.)
And no new regulations are in place to design plane intakes so that birds won't get sucked into them.
So why the sudden interest. What's really going on?
The real issue is that they want to build a gas pipeline under and through the bird sanctuary in Jamaica Bay and storage facilities nearby. The huge project will be tied to the enormously destructive hydro-fracking operations Gov. Cuomo is allowing.
There is a myriad of laws and concerns about destroying the wetlands and wildlife refuge. Let alone popular concern. It's much easier to blame birds for causing planes to crash at JFK, even though it's not true. Then Cuomo et al. could hand over those wetlands to the gas companies and so-called "developers" without arousing too much public and environmental concern. Much easier, all around.
Feeding poor people has nothing to do with it; it's just another convenient facet to sell us their scam.
Your reporter missed the real story, here, which is the theft of public lands and ecology for huge private development and the hydrofracking industry..
Mitchel Cohen
Brooklyn Greens/Green Party
As other people have pointed out, there is no evidence that culling geese does anything to actually make flight paths safer. I'd really love to see an article digging into that a little bit more--it seems like these geese are being used as an easy project to point to saying "see? we're doing our part!" rather than actually taking responsibility and looking at what would improve air safety.
And I'm sorry, but the fact that Anthony Kroll won't explain how the geese were killed is really unsettling. There are already protesters working to save these geese (which would be another interesting follow-up), so I don't entirely believe his reasons--I suspect he doesn't want to go into detail because confronting the details of how these helpless animals are actually being killed might change people's minds.
A rare, mitigating, charitable gesture? They continue to slaughter these birds and yet as we speak they are constructing a waste transfer facility near one of the country's busiest runways at LaGuardia Airport!
But I digress.
The general public may not be aware of this:
1- Wild waterfowl species may be highly contaminated with environmental toxins, especially the geese who habitate at local urban parks and golf courses. Jeff Tittel of the Sierra Club brings up a good point about the jet fuel contaminated grasses consumed by geese near airports.
2-The NYC Health Department urges that people do not partake in more than two meals per month.
http://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/outdoors/fish/health_advisories/a...
3-The Director of Coalition for the Homeless in NYC objects to the slaughtered geese going to their foodbanks.
4-Birmingham, Alabama Food Banks reject it
5- Even Canada's Foodbanks reject it-
Canada considers its own geese unfit for consumption, even by the poverty-stricken, and, says Gail Nyberg, director of Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank (Canada's largest), the meat tastes bad. "If I won't eat them, I won't serve them -- and I won't eat them. Just because someone is low-income, I don't think we should ask them to eat something that most Canadians wouldn't eat."
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/gutcheck/2011/06/canada_goose_homeless_.
They continue to slaughter these birds for a myriad of reasons from airline safety to defecation issues and to make this act seem more palatable, "an act of charity", they donate this possibly tainted meat to food banks where those who may eat this meat may not even be able to secure the medical care they need, should they become affected by it.
I'd like to see the officials who ordered the slaughters of these birds to partake in some of this festive fare.
I ask you- "Would they?"
While I very much appreciate the research by the reporter the article missed the essential point that the roundups which are conducted for "air safety" have no scientific basis, the FAA and USDA is killing birds and crossing their fingers. Experts in the fields of aviation and biology agree with GooseWatch NYC that the roundups are an ineffective response to the risk of bird strikes, which may in fact exacerbate the threat, and furthermore is a distraction from the true threats to aviation safety. The killings are nothing more than a band-aid guaranteed to continue because they are inherently ineffective, and while your article mentioned air safety, completely missed this point. Advocates for the geese and those against the roundups for other reasons, including air safety, could have been contacted for their views on this.
Agreeing with everyone above that killing geese for air safety is senseless and feeding the contaminated meat to the poor is cruel. We have to find better ways to co-exist with the natural world.
If your goal is to eliminate all consumption of environmental contaminants by everyone, then you will simply need to ask people to stop eating. Good luck with that. Low levels of contamination can be found in any wild fish and any wild game. Even food from the most reputable farms (both animal and plant) can occasionally be found to have low levels of undesirable chemicals. This is made true by the simple fact that chemicals exist in small quantities everywhere in the environment. Various chemicals are also routinely used in modern farming. The worry about health effects from eating wild geese exists in the minds of animal rights activists without any scientific backing. These are the same people that would prefer to transform society into one in which everyone is a vegetarian. Good luck with that too. There is nothing special about the consumption of geese relative to any other food animal.
Clearly this is a great idea as long as the proper safeguards are in place. The meat should be occasionally tested. Thee handling of the birds and the processing of the meat should be done according to proper standards.
I say we ask the poor hungry folks eating at the food pantries what they think about the goose meat and whether they would like the program to continue.