Now this really drives me nuts. There is certainly nothing wrong with having safe havens for wildlife. They are generally good things. But if our devotion to animals risks human life, we have gone way overboard. And that appears to be behind the so far unsuccessful efforts to limit the goose population in a wildlife preserve near JKF Airport in the wake of bird strike last year that landed a jet in the Hudson River. From the story:
A year and a half after Canada geese forced an airliner to splash down in the Hudson River, officials are rounding them up in almost every part of the city — but flocks are still free to take off around John F. Kennedy International Airport. The wild birds were at the center of a government vs. government battle on Tuesday. A National Park Service official told The Associated Press that, for now, his agency won’t touch the hundreds of birds living in a refuge near Kennedy airport’s runways. “Our mission is to protect and preserve wildlife — that’s a law — and it isn’t a given that the removal of the geese is necessary to protect the flying public,” said Dave Avrin, the official at the Park Service’s Gateway National Recreation Area, which includes the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.
Priorities, people! Those geese are beautiful animals–but in this context they are just birds. The entire gaggle is not worth one human life. They have already taken down one plane. Can you imagine the uproar if they take down another?
July 1st, 2010 | 10:43 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Lisa, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Risking Aviation Safety–For Geese! » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://shar.es/mOj5q [...]
July 1st, 2010 | 2:42 pm
Almost exactly a year ago, I remember watching a news bit about the discussion on how they were going to deal with the geese. They showed the survivors of the Hudson crash, and then video of geese flying through the sky. The news analyst basically laid it out as a choice between the two, but in a fair way.
I thought to myself, why can’t they discuss the abortion debate as honestly as they do this? Do you ever see an ultrasound video playing when they discuss topics related to abortion? I haven’t.
I’m all for treating animals well, but let’s start with humans, shall we?
July 2nd, 2010 | 7:55 am
Wesley: Take it from a native New Yorker, if you really care about safety you’d be advocating for JFK to be moved outside the city limits.
Idlewild – New York International Airport (now JFK)was opened built in 1942 “out in the boondocks” on what had previously been a golf course. In the postwar period large parts of the surrounding marshland was filled in for housing. The people who moved there have been complaining about the airport ever since (just like in the Arthur Haley book), although the airport was there first. In later years runways were lengthened, access roads widened and ILS facilities installed — with the result that some of the airport’s boundary fences are directly across the street from densely populated areas. The neighbors’ concerns are understandable: planes have fallen into their streets (most notably an Eastern 727 in 1975 and American Airlines A320 Airbus shortly after 9/11) killing people on the ground and caused enormous property damage. Normally, when the wind is blowing the right (some say “wrong”) way giant airliners headed for Runway 22L glide across the traffic on Rockaway Boulevard at slightly above car-top height. On ordinary nights tenants in the high-rise buildings in nearby Howard Beach have their apartments illuminated by high-intensity landing lights. The Canada geese are just one more problem. Removing them won’t make the airport any safer; it will simply forestall consideration of how and where to relocate JFK airport.
We ought to leave the geeses’ natural habitat where it is. “Human exceptionalism” is no excuse for human dominion over every other species on earth.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 2nd, 2010 at 10:11 am
Even if that were to begin today, it would take a decade. Kill the geese to prevent a crash. Not hard.
July 2nd, 2010 | 8:43 pm
Kill the geese? To the best of anyone’s knowledge the only bird collisions that have occurred at JFK have involved starlings.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 2nd, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Geese brought down the USAir jet.
July 3rd, 2010 | 7:14 am
Wesley, the US Air jet was out of LaGuardia, not JFK. It hadn’t happened before, and it hasn’t happened since. Don’t you think playing “einsatzgruppen” with the geese at JFK is just a little bit extreme?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 3rd, 2010 at 9:48 am
La Guardia and JKF are close to each other. You are willing to risk another crash for geese? I knew you didn’t think highly of the sanctity of human life, History Writer, but this is ridiculous.
July 3rd, 2010 | 11:04 am
Given the choice between the cattle that allow themselves to be herded onto airplanes and the geese, I will side with the geese.
July 7th, 2010 | 4:17 am
I am a licensed pilot, flight instructor, and former spouse of a Delta Air Lines captain who was also a USAF pilot. Neither of us has experienced a bird strike, but we have both had close calls, and we both know crews or individuals who have experienced them. Damage ranged from a destroyed windscreen on a Cessna, to a destroyed engine on a USAF C141 tranport. Aircraft frequently have to deviate from approach or departure paths, or delay takeoffs to avoid incidents, but strikes happen with great regularity–you just don’t hear about them because they don’t result in death or major destruction due to the skill of the pilots and controllers, and the increased ability of radar to detect large flocks. BUT, just ONE BIRD can destroy an engine of a jetliner or severely damage the propeller, windscreen or control surfaces of any aircraft, and radar can’t ‘see’ a single bird or small flock.
Geese are not an endangered species; in fact, in many parts of the country Canadian geese are so numerous that they are becoming a health hazard at public parks and playgrounds, playing fields and reservoirs. Reducing their numbers would actually also do a service to the health of the bird population, just as controlling populations of deer is necessary so they don’t populate beyond the limits of their forage. Reducing and/or removing them from the vacinity of any airport will save human lives, and prevent the spread of disease among both human and animal populations.
July 7th, 2010 | 6:08 am
This story, and the comments posted to date, are just one more example of how the world has taken the created order (i.e. God -> Man -> Living Things -> Earth) and turned it upside down. Of course we’re told this in the Bible (“… loving the creation rather than the creator”) but that doesn’t make it any easier.
HistoryWriter: We don’t need an “excuse” for man to have dominion over every other living thing. We do because God says so. He made us in His image, and gave us dominion over all the earth (and everything on/in it). We are also commanded elsewhere to be good stewards of it and with that we have certainly done poorly. Nevertheless, in choices between man and other creatures, man is to come first.
July 9th, 2010 | 6:07 am
[...] Risking Aviation Safety–For Geese! Wesley J. Smith [...]
July 12th, 2010 | 9:32 pm
KJQ: “God says so”? When did she say that?
July 19th, 2010 | 7:25 am
[...] Risking Aviation Safety–For Geese! Wesley J. Smith http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2010/07/01/risking-aviation-safety-for-geese/ [...]
July 19th, 2010 | 7:48 am
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July 19th, 2010 | 8:12 am
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July 27th, 2010 | 3:24 am
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August 6th, 2010 | 5:22 am
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