Hi all,

Here?s the loincloth?Spotted Sandpiper dad with a baby and Least and Western Sandpipers at Jetty Island last Sat.

It?s exciting that Nighthawks were seen around here recently, and if I were given to optimism I?d be hoping for a comeback!

I?ve been following the goose controversy and putting in my two cents at hearings and in letters. I think the birding community should be careful with one fact that gets encouraged, I believe, by the Wildlife Services agency, and seemed to pop up again in Wayne?s post: that geese are here because of introduction programs in the 1930s. It?s one thing to say these geese are descendants of those programs, which is quite likely. It?s quite another to say that?s why we have the geese, which is completely unlikely.

The reason there were no goose here originally had nothing to do with them not being able to get here, since they passed over this area twice a year in migration and no doubt kept one eye out looking for good habitat. Until the irrigated lawn, there was no good habitat here for this grass grazer. It seems inconceivable to me that a vigorous, highly mobile species like this wouldn?t have found all this wonderful habitat by now on its own. Crediting the existence of geese here to human introduction programs is like crediting the Peregrine?s recent success to the hacking program, but even less likely to be true.

By the same token, when you remove animals from optimal habitat for that species, it should be only a matter of time before more animals recruit into the newly vacant habitat. That?s why it makes more sense for anyone who really does need to get rid of geese, such as airport-grounds managers, to choose reducing irrigated lawn rather than killing geese as a strategy. Any of our lives could depend on this, it?s an obvious point. I?m pretty sure Wildlife Services is not bothering to inform Airport lands managers of it, because they hate to let anyone know there is a cost-effective solution to the Goose problem that would jeopardize their job security. (Geese weigh ten pounds and are the most likely bird around here to cause a fatal airplane accident).

Well, I apologize to those who hate this thread, there certainly is good reason to. I?ll end it by saying that I don?t really view this as an animal rights issue, but I see it instead as an issue of fiscal conservatism and bureaucratic priorities. I?m 110% for removing animals for a good reason, well, at least if that good reason is to preserve biodiversity. In this case, however, the public is split down the middle on whether we have a problem, and the pro-goose-kill scientists haven?t come up with anything very convincing. We are removing the geese for 2 reasons: So the Wildlife Services Agency can expand its role into the urban area and preserve its budget and payroll, and so Ken Bounds can demonstrate for one more time that he is not the right fit for the job of Parks Commissioner of Seattle.

Ed Newbold, from Beacon Hill Seattle where the VG Swallows are trying to get everybody fledged . newboldwildlife at netscape.net









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