Commentary
Remarks to Board of Parks Commissioners May 12, 2010
My name is Jim Carrier. I’m a cofounder of Wild Warner Park, a group and Web site — wildwarnerpark.org — that advocates for the “wild” side of Warner Park.
I want to thank officials of the airport, parks department and you commissioners. The way you handled the geese kill brought more attention to Warner Park and its wildlife that anything we could have done with a marketing budget. We know that in the last month, many new people have visited Warner specifically to look at wildlife.
I’m being sarcastic. But this issue invites skepticism.
Twelve years ago, the USDA issued its environmental assessment on geese damage throughout Wisconsin.
Eight years ago, Madison vowed to do something.
Five years ago, after a decade of dealing with the problem, the FAA updated its nationwide advisory on wildlife hazards. Geese, by the way, are not the biggest problem.
Three years ago, DNR banded the geese, but wants nothing to do with them now — because they’re not “huntable.”
The Miracle on the Hudson occurred 15 months ago.
One year later our airport started working on a plan and arrived in this room last month claiming geese were an imminent threat.
That “threat” seemed to grow in step with public opposition.
The Air National Guard, whose fighter wing has been flying jets at Dane County since 1952 issued a letter supporting the kill, calling geese an increasing and significant threat. Our geese are now weapons of mass destruction. We’ve been down this road before.
And that offer to give the meat to the poor? I cook for, and am on the board of, the River Food Pantry just up the road. Our clients have been coming to us, saying, “You’re not going to feed us those geese, are you?” No, we’re not.
Outside this building sits a replica of the statue of liberty. She looks out onto the marsh, and the island where the largest fireworks display in the Midwest celebrates the birth of our nation. When Lady Liberty was dedicated in 1886, the buffalo were gone, eagles were in trouble and the last large flock of carrier pigeons in Michigan was being slaughtered at the rate of 50,000 birds a day. Here in Madi
son, Warner Park was a wetland, an amazing fish nursery and flood absorber. But already it was being seen as a swamp, a waste, a menace to health.
Today, wildlife in Warner has been driven to the back 40. Yet people still object to geese poop — people who want their nature neat and Roundup Ready. History and headlines remind us — we are the great poopers of the world.
Our geese are the most visible wildlife in the Warner Park. In an urban setting like north Madison, their existence reminds us of something greater than ourselves. Their arrival in the spring is a joyous sign of renewal. Their V formations every fall inscribe melancholy on the sky. In a world of tweeting, their honking reminds us of natural rhythms and wiser sensibilities.
Do not take all our geese. Do not silence our spring. Do not kill their call of the wild.
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