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University of Minnesota Prof. Claims Goose Kill is Research Project 6/19/98
Contact: The Coalition asked University of Minnesota President Yudof to explain why Professor James Cooper is disclaiming responsibility for the round up and slaughter of Canada Geese in the Twin Cities area. In an unsolicited e-mail to Dr. Gregg Feigelson, Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese, Cooper claims that his role in the Canada Goose slaughter was as researcher. (A copy of his e-mail to the Coalition's web page is attached.) Cooper's last request for a scientific collection permit to give doses of lead to Canada Geese was denied by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Steve Wilds, Migratory Bird Coordinator, FWS Region 3, told the Coalition today that Cooper presently holds no scientific collecting permit, but is currently listed on the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources permit as the person responsible for the round up of Canada Geese. If Professor Cooper is doing research that would ordinarily require a scientific collecting permit, the listing of him on the depredation permit would be illegal. If Professor Cooper is engaged in the round up and slaughter of Canada Geese, his claim to be exclusively involved in research would be false. Last week, the Coalition asked the University for records on the financial and legal arrangements of this relationship on the killing of Canada Geese. If Cooper is moonlighting for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, what was the purpose of the quarter million dollars in grants to the University from taxpayers in the various municipalities and from corporations? A copy of the Coalition's fax to Yudof and Cooper's e-mail to Dr. Feigelson follow: *****************
TO: Dr. Mark Yudof, President, University of Minnesota
FROM: Coalition to Protect Canada Geese June 19, 1998 Dear Dr. Yudof: We are in receipt of a copy of an email from Professor James Cooper to Dr. Gregg Feigelson, Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese. In this letter, he asserts that he is not involved in the management of the round up and slaughter of Canada Geese in the Minneapolis- St. Paul area, rather he is doing research. Steve Wilds, Migratory Bird Coordinator, US Fish and Wildlife Services, told me yesterday that Professor Cooper holds no scientific collecting permit at the present time. He did, however, hold University of Minnesota permits to conduct the round up and slaughter in at least two previous years. Mr. Wilds also confirmed that Professor Cooper is currently listed on the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources permit to round up and slaughter Canada Geese. We request an explanation for this apparent contradiction. A copy of his e-mail to Dr. Feigelson is attached. Sincerely,
Ann Frisch, Ph.D. ****************
From: "Jim Cooper" [email protected]
Folks: Just read your Web page on the my role in the Twin Cities goose
program.
Dr. Jim Cooper, Associate Professor
Phone: 612-624-1223
FWS Region 5 Permit Fradulent - Group Asks for Revocation 6/16/98
Contact: The Coalition to Protect Canada Geese today asked the US Fish and Wildlife Service (Region 5, Hadley, Massachusetts) (FWS) to revoke a permit issued to PepsiCo corporate headquarters at Purchase NY, to kill Canada Geese. Lou Zummo, spokesperson for Pepsi, told the coalition that they do not have a problem with geese on the property and that they had not shot any geese. Starting earilier this year, the company has been using border collies to move geese around when necessary. Zummo understood fully why shooting made no sense since geese fly from one location to another frequently during the day. Fish and Wildlife Service is required by law to revoke any permit when the emergency no longer exists. Coalition spokesperson Dr. Ann Frisch said that since "serious injury" does not presently exist and the Migratory Bird Treaty specifies that permits "be canceled, at any time, ... when the particular exigency has passed." Last week, Citizens for the Preservation of Wildlife, a Virginia based group which investigated the permit to kill geese at Maryland State Parks asked Region 5 FWS for a revocation of the permit to Cunningham Falls State Park. The group found that the permit was issued by FWS on the fraudulent claims of human health hazard. Fredrick County MD Health Department water quality officer Paul Offutt said that the water was clean and there had been no high coliform counts in two years. According to Robin McClary, President of the CPW, the Center for Disease Control has determined, that Canada Geese do not cause human health problems. Both groups also requested that Region 5 FWS revoke all permits to kill Canada Geese in the region until claims of "serious injury" could be independently verified.
cc: Enc: Letter to Region 5 FWS ***************** Facsimile transmittal
TO: George Haas, Region 5 US Fish and Wildlife Service We request your attention to a permit you issued to PepsiCo to kill Canada Geese on their corporate property in Purchase, NY. By law, a permit is issued when there is evidence of "serious injury" to agriculture, horticulture or fish culture. By law, the permit must be revoked when there is no longer a "serious injury". We have verified that there is no longer a emergency to form the basis of a permit. In fact there never was a basis for a permit to kill Canada Geese. PepsiCo has assured us that border collies are adequate to move the geese when needed. We request that you immediately revoke the PepsiCo permit. We further request that you revoke all Region 5 permits to kill Canada Geese until verification of "serious injury" can be documented. We look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely,
Ann Frisch, Ph.D.
cc:
Maryland DNR Permit Fradulent - Group Asks FWS for Revocation 6/13/98
Contact: Citizens for the Preservation of Wildlife, Inc. today asked the US Fish and Wildlife Service (Region 5, Hadley, Massachusetts) to revoke a permit issued to Cunningham Falls State Park, Maryland, to kill up to 40 Canada Geese. The citizen group learned today that the permit was based on fraudulent health hazards in the permit application. Fish and Wildlife Service is required by law to revoke any permit when the emergency no longer exists. Citizens for the Preservation of Wildlife say the emergency never existed and the permit was issued under fraudulent claims of the Maryland State Department of Natural Resources. The permit authorizes the park to shoot up to 40 Canada Geese at the park. Cunningham Falls Park Ranger Cindy Ecker said that she had prepared the application to kill the geese but admitted that they are not a problem. She says the park scares the geese off early in the season and they remain in another pond away from the swimming area. She claimed not to know if they had already killed any geese. (The permit was issued March 31, 1998). Fredrick County MD Health Department water quality officer Paul Offutt said that the water was clean there and there had been no high coliform counts in two years. According to Robin McClary, President of the CPW, the Center for Disease Control has said that Canada Geese do not cause human health problems. The group also requested that other FWS permits to kill Canada Geese in the region be revoked until any such verification of an emergency could be documented.
Suspicions Run High Over Clarkstown's Non-lethal Goose Control Program 6/11/98 While the town board deserves praise for initiating the use of non-lethal methods of goose control rather than the ineffective killings of the past, there are some serious problems regarding the current program. Problems that must be addressed immediately if the six-month trial program is to be considered legitimate. There is good reason to believe that those who oppose the use of humane, non-lethal goose control are already manipulating and controlling the program to assure a certain outcome: failure. One of the red flags signifying that things aren't as they seem is that the town continues to seek input from the DEC's Bryan Swift, a staunch advocate of goose killing. Why would the town seek the advice of a bureaucrat who has been fighting non-lethal methods for years? He is so committed to killing that earlier this year he proposed that 700 geese be killed this spring. Swift has an indisputable agenda and no practical experience whatsoever in the use of non-lethal control measures. We have insisted from the start that a consultant on non-lethal human/wildlife conflict resolution be brought in for sound biological oversight. In fact, on April 14th, 1998, the town board voted to hire such a person. The Parks Department is currently in violation of this resolution, since no such consultant has been hired. It is even more astounding that the town hired its favorite private contractor Tom Maglaras to implement various non-lethal goose control methods (e.g., fencing) under two different contracts, even though the Parks Department is wallowing in summer student help. Maglaras is a well-known supporter of goose killing, an opponent of non-lethal methods, AND the person hired by the town to round up geese for slaughter for the past two years. It is a major conflict of interest, not to mention absurd, to have the success of the non-lethal control program rely, in large part, on someone who opposes it! Further, despite our requests, no formal guidelines have been established to evaluate the progress of the non-lethal program. Indeed, acceptable goals upon which success of the program can be measured are, as of yet, non-existent. It is nothing short of remarkable that the key players in Clarkstown's non-lethal goose control program oppose the very plan they are supposed to be implementing. Conspicuous by its absence is any legitimate expertise or oversight. It is clearly by premeditated design that the only ones involved directly in the program are those who favor killing and have a vested interest in undermining non-lethal methods.
We are calling for the immediate formalization of criteria upon which the program is to be judged and oversight by an impartial individual who is experienced in the use of non-lethal methods.
ADC Wants Taxpayers to Fund Urban Warfare 5/29/98
Contact: Taxpayers - watch your pocketbook. With budget cuts in the past few years, "Wildlife Services", formerly known as Animal Damage Control (ADC), is looking for other ways to get your cash. Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS), a sister federal agency, wants to turn over the work of protecting Canada Geese to the state game agencies from March 11 to August 31 of each year in order to conduct large scale round up and slaughter of the geese.* The proposed rule lays the groundwork for the government slaughter of other waterfowl including mute swan, ducks and sandhill crane - to turn a profit to ADC at citizen expense. While FWS rule prohibits the round up and slaughter of geese from being a hunting season, it would not stop the government from entering urban neighborhoods by day or night and shooting geese. Some people believe that this is the ADC's maiden voyage into creating a made-in-USA- neighborhood -Bosnia , forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab. (FWS and game agencies "grow" the geese, then ADC kills them, sort of a "bake sale" for these government agencies. Taxpayers pay for the ingredients, then have to buy the cookies.) In fact, ADC has already embarked on "urban warfare". In one Georgia community, ADC gunners drive through suburbs at night, 'freezing' deer with spotlights and shooting them with high-powered rifles. Gunfire near homes alarms residents. Reportedly, 1,100 or more deer have been shot. One rationalization made for the scheme was safety!! (On suburban streets with 30 mph speed limits, it was argued, deer might collide with cars, one of the justifications for the goose slaughter.) ADC urban warriors disobey ordinances prohibiting discharge of firearms. Spotlighting (also called 'deer jacking') and other practices elsewhere would get licensed hunter Joe Sixpack arrested if it was he --instead of ADC-- who was caught. The General Accounting Office (GAO) found that in practice "ADC uses lethal control first" in spite of regulations requiring non lethal methods. (See http://www.inference.com/infind/ and search for Animal Damage Control.) ADC nets the revenues along with the game agencies under Cooperative Service Agreements. ADC, little known to the public outside the West, is a controversial federal agency. Ranchers contract with ADC to exterminate wild animals. ADC agents are the descendants of old-time government "wolfers" who --to suppress natural predators for cattlemen and sheepmen-- would shoot a bison, stuff the carcass with strychnine, and return days later to collect the dead cougars, eagles, wolves, and bears. ADC is largely why America's big natural predators are so imperiled. *Migratory Bird Special Canada Goose Permit, Federal Register, 63, 61, March 31, 1998.
Wisconsin DNR Game Department Ready To Trap Homeowners
Contact: Homeowners seeking to have Canada Geese removed from their property should be on guard that the Wisconsin DNR game officials are aiming to use their property for hunting and trapping. The Wisconsin "Urban Waterfowl" Task Force (Final report, 1998) advocated urban hunting seasons as a "solution" for this "problem." The application to round up and kill Canada Geese in Wisconsin requires those requesting removal of geese from their property to adhere to Chapter 29, Wisconsin Statutes. (Page 36, Final Report). Specifically, applicants of a goose round up would be required to agree to open up their property to hunting. (Section 29.59 (4m), Wisconsin Statutes. "Hunting allowed. If the department removes or authorizes the removal of a wild animal or the structure of a wild animal under sub. (3)(b) The person who owns, leases or occupies the property on which the damage occurred shall open the property to others for hunting and trapping for one year beginning on the date on which the removal activity started unless hunting is prohibited under this chapter, rules promulgated under this chapter or any municipal ordinance." This means that for one year following the removal of Canada Geese on someone's property, the applicant, whether corporate or individual, would be forced to open his or her property if the municipality lifted firearms restrictions or if there were no firearms restrictions. Joe Czarnezki, Former Staff Assistant to Milwaukee Mayor Norquist, represented the Association of Municipalities on the Task Force. He voted in favor of urban hunting seasons, so it is plausible that the municipalities might look kindly on a request to lift firearms restrictions for urban hunting over the objections of citizens. The Wisconsin DNR has agressively pursued approval of early hunting seasons in Wisconsin. Last year, the US Fish and Wildlife Service approved the first two weeks of September (Labor Day weekend excepted) to early hunting season on Canada Geese. Wisconsin DNR game department is agressively seeking new license bearers to supplement their revenues at the expense of taxpayers and citizens who underwrite the the cost of "growing" of deer and geese and other animals to be living targets for hunters.
Blue Ribbon Panel on Geese to Invoke Gag Rule DNR Facilitator Exhibits Craven Disdain for First Amendment Madison, Wisconsin, February 19, 1996 - With only about six percent of the population so disposed, the anomaly known as "sport hunting" has become somewhat less popular than even the smoking habit. As a result, minions of the sport hunting industry in state and federal government have been increasingly forced to resort to scare tactics involving disease and/or depredation allegedly caused by a mythical species of "urban" or "resident" Canada Geese, in a desperate effort to rationalize the recreational slaughter of innocent life forms (hunting). Unfortunately, for the 94% of us who prefer to enjoy, rather than destroy, the wonders of nature, it has recently become painfully apparent that this is the purpose of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' so-called "Urban Waterfowl Task Force." From information we have been able to obtain, the DNR's facilitator, a Dr. Scott Craven, 2948 Ivanhoe Glen, Madison, WI 53711-5297 - Ph: (608) 271-6347, is attempting to impose a rule that would prohibit members of the task force from discussing related issues outside the meetings and require them to refer all press inquiries to "THE FACILITATOR." Apparently, believing that the general public should not be burdened with facts upon which to base their own decision in the matter, the ostensible reason given for this was that "(A) lot of other discussion could be detrimental to the ultimate success of the task force." The makeup of the "task farce" having been carefully engineered to assure the sport hunting industry a two-thirds majority in all such actions, this can only be considered a constitutionally reprehensible GAG RULE. The good doctor's craven disdain for the First Amendment, notwithstanding, the purpose of the proposed rule is clearly to prevent any information not in keeping with sport hunting industry's official "party line" from reaching the general public. i.e. Members of the animal rights community were included solely for the purpose of silencing the opposition. The fact of the matter is, if increased numbers of Canada Geese do pose a problem, then it is the sport hunting industry, via its minions in state and federal government, that is causing the problem. Feeding and habitat programs designed to increase the number of "hunting opportunities" have upset the balance of nature. The simple solution to the (alleged) problem is to restore the balance of nature. Terminate all feeding and habitat programs instituted/supported by government agencies, such as the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and front organizations for the sport hunting industry, such as Ducks Unlimited, and the numbers of Canada Geese (and numerous other species) will return to a natural level where there is no longer a "need" to "control" their population via lethal and inhumane methods such as sport hunting. This, however, is the solution that the sport hunting industry and its evil minion, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, obviously does not want the public to hear; and, why Dr. Scott "The Facilitator" Craven seeks to impose a GAG RULE on all but the official "party line." Accordingly, the press is encouraged to attend the meeting of the Urban Waterfowl Task Force scheduled for 7:00 P.M., February 25th, at the Oak Brook Inn in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin - if only to insure the survival of the First Amendment in the State of Wisconsin.
Fly Wisconsin...And Die! WISCONSIN DNR TO REPORT TOXICITY STUDIES ON CANADA GEESE
Contact: The Department of Natural Resources told the Coalition to Protect Canada Geese (TM) today that the results of the toxicity studies on 30 Canada Geese will be announced at the DNR Canada Goose Task Force on Tuesday, January 14 in Menomonee Falls. The DNR killed 30 geese under permit from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the body burden for DDT, dieldrin and PCBs. Sites where the geese were killed are: Regner Park, Sheboygan River, Fox River Mouth (Green Bay), Lincoln Park, Villa du Park, Wilson Park and Green Bay Sanctuary. The DNR has been studying the Canada Geese to determine if the State of Wisconsin should emulate the Canada Goose kills in New York, Minnesota and Michigan held last summer. (Minnesota also slaughtered Canada Geese in 1995). In Minnesota and Michigan, the geese were fed to the poor. But New York conducted toxic studies prior to releasing the goose bodies and found that the geese contained high levels of lead and therefore could not be fed to the poor. Taxpayers paid $10,000 to conduct the study to determine if Canada Geese pose such a threat . The implications that hunters could also be suffering from toxins in the Canada Geese is also apparent. It was reported elsewhere that hundreds of geese were found dead around Kansas City over New Years holiday. The Kansas City Star reported Wednesday morning that geese at Olathe, Kansas had apparently died from lead poisoning, giving credence to the potential for toxic hazard. A hundred more dead geese were also found on a golf course at Smithville, Missouri, where Clay County is conducting a urban hunting season. The DNR study did not test for lead poisoning. The Wisconsin Animal Educational Network and Citizens Against Pesticides (CAP) are two of the Wisconsin groups involved in the Coalition to Protect Canada Geese (TM). The DNR Task Force will be meeting at the Oak Brook Inn, Menomonee Falls, Hwy 41/45 to Main Street (West) exit. Turn right onto Main Street. The meeting is by law open to the public.
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