No More Killing of Canadian Geese in North Park

To:  County Chief Executive Dan Onorato

We the undersigned express our outrage at the killing of the North Park geese in July 2007, and demand that Allegheny County commit to using non-lethal methods for the management of the Canada Goose population in the future.
1. The County was thinking of slaughtering the geese in North Park due to overpopulation. (Note that ALL people that I ran across when I was nursing an injured goose back to health, praised me for doing so.) I nursed it back to health myself, after repeatedly calling North Park and getting no results. In fact, North Park told me, "It is just another goose, and we have so many!"
2. There was outrage in the community and community groups supporting the geese. In fact, VOICES FOR ANIMALS contacted the County in April and gave them solutions as to how to reduce the number of geese by using non-lethal methods, such as egg “addling” (covering the just-laid eggs at the embryo stage with a thin coating of oil so the embryo does not develop) and using trained border collies to scare them away. The County made a commitment during a meeting with Voices for Animals in May to use non-lethal methods for the next two years, working with the group Geasepeace, which has achieved 100\% success with its humane methods.
3. KDKA TV ran a biased feature item by reporter Andy Shehan July 10, exaggerating the “risks” of the goose droppings (NO STUDY HAS EVER PROVED THAT GEESE DROPPINGS ARE A DANGER TO HUMAN HEALTH). As a result of this, large numbers of park visitors called the County to complain about the geese. Succumbing to the pressure, and ignoring please from those who care about the, County Chief Executive Dan Onorato gave the go-ahead for the geese to be slaughtered (please note that we on the other side, opposing this, were not consulted!)
4. The Dept. of Agriculture was contacted by Mr. Baechle and "sneakily" came out to North Park last weekend (without anyone knowing, after telling everyone that they would not do this) and using lasers (although I find that hard to believe – I think they were using tasers), gathered the geese and slaughtered them!
5. We KNOW there are North Park and other residents who care so much for the geese and Voices For Animals and I have no intention of letting the tragic killing of these poor geese go by without letting the County know that they won’t get away with these things so lightly.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The No More Killing of Canadian Geese in North Park Petition to County Chief Executive Dan Onorato was created by Voices for Animals and written by Beth Kubit (bkubit@nauticom.net).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.

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