Mr. Paul R. Schmidt, Chief
Office of Migratory Bird Management
US Fish and Wildlife Service
Department of the Interior
MS 634--ARLSQ
1849 C. Street NW
Washington DC 20240

Dear Mr. Schmidt,

I respectfully submit the following comments opposing the proposed "Migratory Bird Special Canada Goose Permit" rule [Federal Register: March 31, 1998 (Volume 63, Number 61), pp. 15697-15705]. Please place these comments with the other papers related to this matter.

The proposed rule, "Migratory Bird Special Canada Goose Permit,"would violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) and the Congressionally mandated duty of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to enforce the MBTA, which ratified the Migratory Bird Treaty (MBT), an international agreement to protect birds found to need protection.

Transferring to the states FWS' duty to review Canada goose depredation-permit applications would violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requirement of a public-comment period for such applications, since the APA applies to federal agencies, not to state agencies. Giving blanket permits to states in violation of the MBTA and APA would usurp Congressional authority by exempting from the APA an FWS function currently required by the APA. As explained below, evaluations of Canada goose depredation-permit applications should be more rather than less influenced by public comments.

FWS' proposed transferring to state wildlife agencies of a Congressionally mandated duty and FWS' proposed exempting of that duty from the Congressionally mandated public-comment period could not more flagrantly violate the U.S. Constitution, under which Congress passes laws and gives responsibility for their enforcement to duly constituted agencies of the federal government. Attempting to ease FWS� administrative burdens does not overcome these serious illegalities. FWS could seek remedies within its current practices rather than violate the MBTA, the APA, and the Constitution, all of which would result in more rather than less senseless destruction of Canada geese and depriving the public of its rightful voice in this important matter.

Because the proposed rule would violate FWS' duties under the MBTA and APA, the proposed rule should be summarily rejected. The additional reasons I oppose the proposed rule should not be necessary for the proposed rule to be rejected. However, since, in issuing the proposal for the rule change, FWS indicated its intention to violate the law, the Constitution, and rule of law, after explaining the necessity of FWS� adhering to the requirements of the MBTA and the APA, I will briefly explain the falsity of some of the principle assertions on which the proposed rule is based: that the proposed rule would help improve management of Canada geese; would assist the public in alleviating alleged threats to human health and safety from Canada geese; and would be appropriate for assisting the public in protecting property against alleged damage from Canada geese. I will then briefly explain why, if any new policy should replace the existing one, it should increase rather than decrease the difficulty of obtaining Canada goose depredation permits and should require more reliance on public comment and less on alleged reasons for killing or relocating Canada geese.

Note: I will not cite literature to support assertions made in these comments. I submit these comments, not as a scientist or an attorney, but as a lay person and a U.S. citizen who was employed full-time for eight years in animal protection, has long been involved in disputes regarding wildlife protection, have read widely regarding wildlife, has spent much time observing Canada geese, and has communicated with many other citizens, including experts and public officials, regarding this matter. My assertions that contradict FWS' claims in support of the proposed rule constitute common knowledge inasmuch as they are supported by a wide range of literature and are not contradicted by any serious current literature. Many other comments opposing the proposed rule will be submitted by scientists and attorneys and will cite literature. As one of many thousands of ordinary Americans who have taken it upon ourselves to gain an understanding of this matter despite the dearth of public discourse regarding it, I request that FWS view my comments as representing a widely shared desire for responsible, reality-based wildlife policies to replace the historic and current pattern of destruction of Canada geese and other wildlife based on misguided custom and superstition and bolstered by the failures of educational institutions, news media, government, and others to inform adequately regarding Canada geese and other wildlife.

The proposed rule would violate FWS' Congressionally mandated duty under the MBTA to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty by protecting Canada geese within U.S. borders.

The MBTA requires FWS to approve, on a sound factual basis, any killing of Canada geese proposed by anyone in the U.S. This requirement has produced a policy under which any property owner, municipality, or other person or entity wishing to reduce numbers of Canada geese in a given location must apply to FWS and the relevant state wildlife agency for permission to do so.

FWS must rule on such applications on a case-by-case basis and is supposed to base its decisions on accurate understandings of Canada geese, their effects on habitat and vice versa, and likely results of proposed management methods.

FWS, being a federal agency within the Department of the Interior, is intrinsically less subject to pressure to approve counterproductive, self-serving, cruel, or otherwise ill-conceived proposals regarding wildlife than are local or state agencies. This is particularly true with regard to the killing of Canada geese, since the 1937 Pittman-Robertson Act and the state laws existing to ensure that state wildlife agencies receive Pittman-Robertson funds provide strong incentives for states to teach generation after generation of Americans simplistic and inaccurate notions regarding wildlife.

It is easily and frequently observed, for example, that vast numbers of people, including members of the news media who report on proposals to kill Canada geese, are ignorant of compensatory reproduction and immigration that take place when geese are killed; of toxic substances existing in the flesh of Canada geese offered to the poor and elderly when geese are killed; of the absence of health and safety threats from Canada geese; and of the intelligence, resourcefulness, and family structures of Canada geese, and other facts that should constitute deciding factors in every community's attitude and conduct toward Canada geese. Regardless of whether FWS has to date seen fit to operate based on such knowledge and understanding of Canada geese when considering depredation-permit applications, it is indisputable that FWS' transferring its MBTA authority to the states would have a devastating impact on Canada geese and on concerned citizens' efforts to establish sound ways of living with Canada geese. This anticipated result arises from several basic facts:

FWS officials who review depredation-permit applications are not elected or appointed by elected officials; therefore, they have more leeway than elected officials to rely on genuine knowledge rather than widely held misconceptions that often inform plans to kill Canada geese. Local officials and property owners who submit applications for Canada goose depredation permits are under far more pressure than FWS officials to react hastily to public sentiment which is often ill-informed regarding wildlife and which often seeks what may superficially appear a "solution" to a "problem"without regard to underlying facts which, if acknowledged, would produce far different plans.. Being more under the sway of local public sentiment than is FWS, local officials often wish to accede to demands for action on complaints about wildlife, regardless of whether complaints are valid or whether proposed actions appropriately respond to complaints. Although sport hunting is not among the lethal methods the proposed rule would allow state wildlife agencies to permit the various complaining entities to use, the state wildlife agencies would still have strong incentives to approve applications to kill Canada geese: Killing them helps ensure numbers remain high for sport hunters and helps ensure continued public harboring of the misconception that killing animals is a sound activity and an appropriate remedy for complaints about Canada geese.

A telling illustration of points (1) through (4), above, occurred last year in the area where I reside: Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The Parks Department had previously implemented an egg-addling program at two large county parks, believed by all concerned to be working to lower Canada goose populations at the parks without harming or unduly distressing the birds. Suddenly last year, despite the effectiveness of the existing program, the Parks Department applied for a permit to allow winners of a lottery to shoot geese at one of the parks. The Department claimed the shooters would kill 100 Canada geese. They killed 38. It is unlikely killing 100 would have had a significant impact on the alleged problems the killing was supposedly intended to solve; killing 38 likely had no impact.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission coerced the Parks Department into applying for a permit to shoot Canada geese under the threat that otherwise the Commission would not approve the Department's application to continue its egg-addling program the following year. Members of the public who requested scientific information about the birds� alleged impact on the parks and public health and safety were refused. The news media failed to press for complete information, so the public was under-informed and unaware that there was no scientific basis for killing the birds. Should applications persist for permits to kill Canada geese in these parks, the public will be much better served if FWS must receive public comments than if the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the county Parks Department are left to their own devices.

State wildlife agencies have a vested interest in any lethal wildlife-management method. If, under the proposed rule, hunting is not among the activities the state wildlife agencies would have authority to approve, they would still be able to insist localities or property owners apply for another form of killing. Then, even if hunting-license and ammunition-tax revenues did not accrue directly from the activity in question, such activity would tend to increase populations of Canada geese for hunters to kill and thereby increase the agencies� funding. Using lethal methods also perpetuates a destructive myth under which many sadly continue to labor: that animals engaged in their natural behavior are a �nuisance� and therefore should be killed whenever any human being, for any or no reason, wants to kill them. Perpetuating this myth ipso facto supports sport hunting by subordinating the most important of animals' interests to even the most trivial human interests. By transferring authority over Canada goose depredation permits to state wildlife agencies, FWS would therefore ensure that more unjustifiable destruction of Canada geese would take place than ever before.

It is unlikely that Congress, in ratifying the Migratory Bird Treaty, passing the MBTA, and charging FWS with MBTA enforcement, intended for FWS to transfer that oversight to state agencies. The Migratory Bird Treaty is an international agreement. The United States government is responsible for meeting the American public�s obligations under it, not the 50 states with varied policies and built-in incentives for permitting people to kill animals. Not only would implementing the proposed rule technically violate the MBTA; it would result in increased unjustifiable destruction of Canada geese, thereby violating the most basic purpose of the MBTA and the treaty the MBTA ratified on behalf of all Americans.

The proposed rule would exempt Canada goose depredation permit applications from the Congressionally mandated public-comment period under the APA, without Congressional action.

Under the APA, FWS must publish and customarily has published in the Federal Register, with notice of a public-comment period, pending applications by property owners, localities, or other entities for Canada goose depredation permits. This practice appropriately accords concerned citizens the opportunity to support or oppose such applications. By doing away with this opportunity, the proposed rule would unduly harm the public, Canada geese protected under the MBTA, and property owners, municipalities, and other entities that apply, almost always out of ignorance, for Canada goose depredation permits.

Many local officials, property owners, members of the public, and members of the news media are misinformed or uninformed regarding animals' behavior, population dynamics, and effects on human beings and their surroundings. Considering the threat depredation permits represent to the lives and well-being of federally protected Canada geese, many are astonished by the ease with which permits are obtained and the apparent frivolousness with which FWS often dismisses public comments opposing issuance of permits.

In addition to being harmful to Canada geese protected under the MBTA, proposals to kill Canada geese also tend to be counterproductive with regard to the stated intentions of those who devise them. Therefore, the concerns of those who oppose applications are of the utmost value to the Canada geese protected under the MBTA, the public which is best served by conscientious execution of the law, and those who would implement misguided plans with regard to Canada geese and deserve the opportunity to try something appropriate. Under current policy, the deeply concerned and highly knowledgeable members of the public who gather information, propose the most humane and effective methods for dealing with complaints about Canada geese, and submit comments to FWS regarding depredation-permit applications have an official venue for voicing concerns.

As explained above, state wildlife agencies have an abiding incentive to maintain public ignorance about wildlife management methods, including an exaggerated notion of the effectiveness of killing animals for reducing their populations. Public comment to FWS and the resulting opportunity for FWS to recommend better programs can serve to improve Americans� methods of managing wildlife, should FWS choose to improve it. It is one of very few currently existing ways of accomplishing this, since experience throughout the U.S. indicates that society's customary sources of information - school, church, family, and news media - generally fail to educate regarding wildlife, FWS, the MBT, the MBTA, and the APA. Such understanding only increases gradually under the best of circumstances. For FWS to unnecessarily retard the process by eliminating public comment from the Canada goose depredation-permit application process would be tantamount to the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS') acting to suppress knowledge of how AIDS is contracted or the Food & Drug Administration�s suppressing knowledge of a lethal effect of a pharmaceutical product.

It is unlikely that Congress, in guaranteeing a public-comment period under the APA, intended for FWS to to shut out of the decision-making process those citizens most concerned with sound enforcement of the MBTA and to leave such decisions to those with a misperceived short-term "need" to kill federally protected Canada geese. Such readings of federal law would render farcical the processes of passing and enforcing laws; would create chaos in the relationship between the federal government and the public; and would contribute significantly to disrespect for the law.

3. The proposed rule would not improve management of Canada geese.

No evidence has been presented that state wildlife agencies tend to make better decisions than FWS as to appropriate measures to take, if any, regarding complaints about Canada geese. In the above-described example, in which the Pennsylvania Game Commission insisted the Montgomery County Parks Department apply for a lottery hunt on Canada geese rather than continue its egg-addling program, the Game Commission�s abuse of its authority very likely resulted in a counterproductive action. At the very least, it interrupted, and made more difficult to assess, the egg-addling program.

State wildlife agencies also approve killing and relocating Canada geese in the cases where FWS issues depredation permits. Since there is little distinction between state- and FWS-approved depredation, it is hardly reasonable to declare that state oversight would produce better management than FWS oversight. This is true of Canada goose relocations repeated year after year in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Unlike many kinds of problems Americans seek to solve with or without government involvement, the alleged problem of "too many Canada geese" is often irrationally declared "solved" by the same parties who soon allege that it has reoccurred and so again needs to be "solved" by the same failed methods. This absurd state of affairs clearly arises because those wishing to kill Canada geese find it more convenient in the short term to kill some birds than to implement solutions that would be more effective in the long term and which involve habitat alteration which may necessitate short-term expenditures and changes in human use of the area in question. In other words, failure to acknowledge and deal with the source of the situation results in misnaming goose killing or relocation a "solution." This is done by state agencies no less than by FWS, so FWS' claim that transferring authority to the states would improve Canada goose management contradicts the facts.

Habitat altered by human beings so as to be ideal for Canada geese is the primary reason for the vast, relatively recent increase in numbers of �resident� Canada geese. Human beings alter the habitat to create lakes surrounded by large areas of invasive non-indigenous short turf grass giving easy access to the water and providing space near the lake in which to engage in recreational activities for which a lake is not needed. This is ideal Canada goose habitat as the birds prefer to be able to walk in and out of the lake, to and from the grasses on which they feed, rather than encounter barriers between land and water or distance between lake and food. Human beings create other similar situations in making large corporate lawns, landscaping with ponds for malls and office parks, golf courses, and other dramatic changes for a variety of purposes. Irrational belief in the correctness and necessity of any use of land desired by its owners or the community produces a situation in which people label the natural response of Canada geese to the altered habitat - essentially accepting the invitation to live in a place made ideal for them - a "nuisance" when they perceive it as interfering with the planned use of land. The killing of Canada geese in such circumstances manifests a combination of ignorance, arrogance, and irresponsibility which no responsible government agency should condone.

Clearly what is needed to comply with the MBT and the MBTA is land-use practices that respect wildlife, not FWS' tendency to grant depredation permits rather than require habitat adjustment. Rather than eliminate the outrageous practice of creating ideal Canada goose habitat and then establishing an endless cycle of Canada goose killing, the proposed rule would ensure its indefinite continuation. For the reasons explained above, state wildlife agencies have vested interests in the killing of wildlife. Rather than minimize the destructiveness of these interests as it should do under the MBTA, issuing blanket Canada goose depredation permits to the state wildlife agencies would bolster poor wildlife management practices. This result is directly contrary to FWS� claimed intention of improving wildlife management.

It should also be noted that the above-described poor uses of land that provide year-round homes for Canada geese are devastating to songbirds FWS is charged with protecting under the MBTA. Many songbird species require vast stretches of forest for nesting and survival. "Developing" land by destroying forest has been widely implicated in dramatically reduced numbers of many species. The problem of Canada goose killing reveals the depravity of our widespread misuse of land because geese tend to increase rather than decrease in the areas altered by human beings. The high visibility of Canada geese in no way diminishes the destruction by human land-use practices of less-visible birds. Such land-use practices also create other serious difficulties for many species of wildlife - an enormous problem beyond the scope of these comments. However, FWS should find it of great importance that passing the proposed rule would not only constitute a shirking of the agency's responsibility toward Canada geese under the MBTA, but would also increase the difficulty of protecting other species under the MBTA. Calling this improved Canada goose management is a deeply frightening prospect.

4. The proposed rule would not assist the public in alleviating threats to human health and safety from Canada geese.

No evidence has been provided in support of claims that Canada geese pose a health or safety threat to human beings. In addition to the fact that anyone who, like me, has spent considerable time among Canada geese finds claims of a health or safety threat positively ludicrous, many facts demonstrate the falsity of such claims.

Claims of such threats from Canada geese are never made by health and safety experts. They are only made by people seeking to kill or relocate Canada geese. In the above-described case of the recent Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Canada goose kill by lottery, I and others asked the Parks Department for evidence in support of assertions that complaints had been filed alleging attacks on human beings by Canada geese and assertions that Canada geese posed a health threat to human beings. The Parks Department failed to provide even one shred of evidence for either of these assertions.

As attested by hundreds of public comments filed with FWS regarding Canada goose depredation-permit applications from many localities throughout the U.S., licensed health professionals have debunked every claim of a health threat to human beings from Canada geese. In addition, none of the public health officials who could be expected to issue warnings in the event of a health threat from Canada geese has done so. Some do not even comprehend why anyone would ask whether geese are a health threat. Phoning the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to ask for information on a possible health threat from Canada geese when the above-mentioned lottery Canada goose kill was being planned in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, I was routed to several scientists, none of whom knew of a health threat from Canada geese or of any reason to think such a threat might exist. My call to a Pennsylvania public-health hotline to ask the same question was greeted with puzzlement. The employee who took my call wanted to know why was I asking such a question - had I or my family had a problem? No, I said, but there had been claims that geese or their droppings in a picnic area could pose a problem. The employee suggested that one might wish to wash one's hands before eating at a picnic area, with or without Canada geese present!

One would anticipate quite the opposite approach if Canada geese posed a health threat, particularly since populations of "resident" Canada geese have grown significantly in recent years. In the cases of HIV and Lyme disease, for example, public discussion and literature have proliferated since they were recognized as health threats. Brochures are issued, hotlines established, field and laboratory research into treatments and cures undertaken, National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding made available. What professional recognition exists of health problems caused by Canada geese? Has FWS provided evidence of such health problems to CDC, HHS, and the state health departments recommending quick development of programs to deal with these health problems? If so, please consider this a request under the Freedom of Information Act for copies of such recommendations and supporting evidence. Perhaps, contrary to my experience in seeking evidence of a public health threat from Canada geese, the CDC, HHS, and state health departments have established the existence of such a threat and therefore has requested that FWS issue depredation permits. If so, please consider this a request under the Freedom of Information Act for copies of such findings and requests.

FWS is responsible for enforcing the MBTA, so its issuing of Canada goose depredation permits on the basis of alleged threats to public health should require overwhelming evidence of such threats and official findings and requests such as I inquire about above. In approving depredation-permit applications based on alleged public-health threats while ignoring the many professional statements refuting such allegations, FWS is not protecting public health but helping to perpetuate ancient superstitions to the effect that animals are �dirty.� This can hardly be said to advance the protection of Canada geese or any other wildlife.

Passing the proposed rule would tend to entrench such superstitions further instead of helping to overcome them by providing information the would enhance efforts to enforce the MBTA.. This is because those who initiate proposals to kill Canada geese for their own immediate convenience or to avoid correcting poor uses of land play on such superstitions to gain support for their proposals. As the state wildlife agencies are more than pleased to issue depredation permits for the above-mentioned reasons, they certainly cannot be counted on to inform the public as to the falsity of the belief that Canada geese pose a health threat to human beings.

Even if Canada geese posed a health threat to human beings, issuing permits to kill or relocate geese would not contribute to a solution to such a threat. As has been seen time and time again, killing and relocating Canada geese results in population rebounds. If geese posed a health threat, using management methods that ensure their populations remain as large and sometimes larger would be an astonishingly inefficient and uneconomical way to eliminate the threat. Obviously, the claim that the proposed rule would enable FWS to help reduce a public health threat is false.

The only allegations of attacks on human beings by Canada geese tend to result when human beings walk closer to adult birds and their young than basic good sense would dictate. No rule change by FWS would increase the intelligence of anyone who would take such ill-considered action or allow a child to do so. Simple educational measures would help to teach respect for all animals, including Canada geese. This can be accomplished through schools, news media, families, and others wherever geese exist or wherever someone has been told by an adult goose to back off. Embarrassment and fear resulting from such episodes, not injuries, are the real reasons some may claim Canada geese constitute a threat to public safety. I have yet to find evidence of an injury from a goose. It is far more appropriate for FWS to reject depredation-permit applications based on nonsensical allegations of safety threats than to risk having state wildlife agencies grant them.

Passing the proposed rule would increase two public safety threats: (a) By doing away with obstacles to obtaining a permit, the proposed rule would increase instances in which poor and elderly people are fed uninspected flesh of dead geese, which has repeatedly been found to contain dangerous levels of lead, insecticides, and other toxins. (b) By allowing shooting to take place in urban and suburban areas, the proposed rule would increase instances in which members of the public are dangerously close to gunfire which does not belong in such areas.

5. The proposed rule would be inappropriate for protecting property against alleged damage from Canada geese.

Any allegation that property is being damaged by Canada geese is tantamount to a statement that (1) the property itself constitutes ideal habitat for geese�corporate lawn, golf course, or other ideal habitat for geese as described above�and the �damage� is simply the geese living their lives according to their natures and/or (2) the property owner has not taken appropriate�non-lethal�action to exclude geese. Such allegations are not a sound basis for killing Canada geese.

Under current rules, property owners all too often obtain permission to kill Canada geese on the basis of such allegations. The proposed rule is not necessary for such permission to be granted. If, by claiming the proposed rule would enhance people's ability to protect their property, FWS simply means state wildlife agencies would approve Canada goose depredation permits more quickly and with less compunction than FWS would, it is clear FWS is confusing speed with effectiveness. The current rules provide a way for FWS to protect Canada geese according to its duty under the MBTA. Protecting these birds is consistent with keeping them off of property where they are not wanted, as killing and relocating geese are porr methods of accomplishing this. Thus, by undermining deliberation as to the best methods to use, the proposed rule would severely diminish the opportunity to protect the birds and people's property.

In cases where property damage by Canada geese is alleged, it is likely that killing or relocating geese will perpetuate the alleged problem. Because it leaves the same land and food supply available to other geese, removing geese from a site may appear to protect the property, but in fact it invites more geese to the property. Due to the above-mentioned state wildlife agencies� vested interests and incentives for allowing Canada geese to be killed, those agencies are less likely than FWS to insist on habitat modification, the single most effective way to prevent Canada geese from inhabiting or visiting a site. State agencies not being subject to the APA, the proposed rule would deprive property owners of the benefits of the public-comment period required of FWS depredation-permit decisions under the APA.

It ludicrous to claim any significant property damage is ever done by Canada geese. When Canada geese walk, driveways do not crumble, trees fall, houses cave in, swimming pools leak, or fences collapse. Canada geese do not crash through windows or strip shingles from roofs, paint from doors, or gutters from eaves. They do not slash car tires, chew the supports from under porches, or vandalize graves. One must wonder what kind of damage Canada geese can possibly cause to property that is serious enough for FWS to propose abdicating its duty to protect the geese and giving over to state agencies its authority over requests for permission to kill them. Canada geese are extremely gentle beings.

Obviously, since depredation of Canada geese can take place under existing rules, property damage is being suggested as a reason to support the proposed rule by playing on the sacredness of property in Americans' lives and many Americans' fears of property loss or damage, not because a new rule is needed without which property cannot be protected against a devastating beast known as the Canada goose.

If a new policy regarding Canada goose depredation-permit applications replaces the existing policy, the new one should make it more rather than less difficult to obtain a permit and should require more reliance on public comments offering up-to-date information, less on trumped-up pretexts for killing Canada geese.

Killing or relocating Canada geese, for whatever alleged purposes, ignores basic facts about animals: they tend to live where habitat is best for them; artificial reductions of their populations tend to be followed by compensatory reproduction, immigration, and consequent population rebounds; their behavior can be altered by changes in habitat; and if they posed serious threats to human beings, it is unlikely humanity would have survived to this point--until very recently in our existence we were far fewer in number and many animals were far greater in number; we knew far less about animals; and we had far fewer technological resources of which to avail ourselves in our actions toward animals. Permission to kill or relocate Canada geese constitutes an exemption from prohibitions under the MBTA which the United States adopted in ratifying the MBT, an international treaty under which we are obligated to protect Canada geese, not urged to grope for rationalizations for killing them.

Because killing or relocating Canada geese for the purposes usually alleged violates reality and federal law and because such activity is by definition a life-and-death matter, the obstacles to obtaining a Canada goose depredation permit should be virtually insurmountable. FWS currently issues permits despite extensive evidence against their issuance presented to FWS in comments by members of the public who are concerned about Canada geese and who gather reliable information applicable to circumstances under which applicants for permits wish to kill or relocate Canada geese. The information presented to FWS by these concerned members of the public is demonstrably far more persuasive than the reasons given for obtaining depredation permits. Yet FWS continually issues such permits.

It is FWS' failure to rely on the best evidence in reaching its decisions on permit applications that has created the present situation in which FWS seeks to lighten the administrative burden with regard to Canada goose depredation-permit applications. The size of FWS' administrative burden is largely a function of its failure to persevere in protecting Canada geese under the MBTA in favor of approving nonsensical applications for permission to destroy them. As in many areas of life where concerned citizens must continually speak out lest unjustifiable practices continue indefinitely, when FWS issues Canada goose depredation permits against all reason, it is inconceivable that citizens who know killing and relocating will not solve any problems and that alleged problems with geese are mythical will remain silent. Therefore, the most effective and appropriate way for FWS to reduce its administrative burden with regard to Canada goose depredation-permit applications is to render sound decisions regarding the applications: to explain why killing and relocating are inappropriate and to provide applicants with the most useful information on Canada geese, their habitat and population dynamics, and uses of habitat modification to remedy complaints.

Because the substance, not the process, is most important - because protecting Canada geese and preventing their senseless destruction is more important than the official procedures under which this is accomplished�I respectfully request that, if FWS does transfer to state wildlife agencies the authority to issue Canada goose depredation permits, FWS require those agencies to notify the public, immediately and through widely read media, including agency Web sites, of all applications it receives for permits; notify the public of a period of at least three months in which members of the public may submit comments regarding the applications; provide members of the public with copies of all information in support of applications, within 10 days of receipt of such requests; immediately file with FWS, so as to make available under the Freedom of Information Act, all written and printed materials, internal and submitted by applicants and other members of the public, related to all permit applications; and to fulfill the duty FWS would be abrogating under the MBTA by passing the proposed rule: protecting Canada geese. FWS can accomplish this by requiring the strictest possible standards for approving permits.

Conclusion.

The pattern of irresponsible human behavior with regard to natural surroundings occurs through no fault of Canada geese. The MBTA was passed precisely to prevent such behavior from destroying Canada geese and other protected birds. FWS has not been adequately fulfilling its duty under the MBTA to protect Canada geese. The proposed rule would bring FWS further from the mark. FWS will be doing a great service if it acts to diminish rather than enlarge the difference between the protection of Canada geese mandated by the MBTA and current destructive practices. Doing this service will be one and the same as upholding scientific principles.

It is through no fault of Canada geese that, despite all that is known about their intelligence, their family structures, and other qualities of theirs, governmental and educational institutions and news media generally fail in their responsibility to inform regarding activities affecting these birds and so a large segment of the public fails to comprehend the importance of modifying land-use practices and ending pointless destruction of federally protected Canada geese. I respectfully submit these comments in the hope that the proposed "Migratory Bird Special Canada Goose Permit" rule [Federal Register: March 31, 1998 (Volume 63, Number 61), pp. 15697-15705] will be rejected and that FWS, a key body affecting survival of Canada geese, will increase rather than decrease its vigilance in protecting Canada geese. Thank you for considering these comments.

Respectfully submitted,