Looks like The Post’s honking about New York’s deadly Canada geese finally woke up those Port Authority birdbrains: Officials say they’re ramping up efforts to control the fowl and want special radar at all PA airports.
Well, it’s a start.
Alas, the pols and bureaucrats still don’t get it: The geese gotta go – now.
They need to be killed.
Their nests destroyed.
Their eggs . . . scrambled.
Or people may die – as this month’s near-catastrophic downing of Flight 1549 in the Hudson dramatically showed.
Indeed, any remaining doubts that Canada geese brought down that US Airways jet are rapidly vanishing. Last Wednesday, investigators found a feather and “organic material” on the plane’s engine, wings and fuselage.
Nor was this the first time birds had forced down a plane out of La Guardia: In 2003, they struck an American Airlines jet just after it took off, prompting an emergency landing at Kennedy.
How many bird-strike near-misses before officials get serious?
Anyway, isn’t it enough that some 219 people have died worldwide since 1988 and that damage runs as high as $600 million a year, thanks to wholly avoidable collisions with birds?
Yes, it was wise of the PA to ask the Federal Aviation Administration to test a special radar system – designed to identify and warn pilots of potential bird-plane collisions – at all three Port Authority airports. (Before Flight 1549 went down, the plan was to test it only at JFK.)
And, yes, it’s good to hear that the Air Force is reportedly offering New York a radar system meant for a base in Nevada. Based on the equipment’s performance so far at other airports and Air Force bases, it seems promising.
But Canada geese are both a nuisance and a danger to human life and property.
They need to be eliminated.
Alas, Gov. Paterson hasn’t shown much interest in the issue.
Mayor Bloomberg’s aides say the city has “stepped up” its work with the PA and will “take whatever steps are necessary” to keep flight paths safe.
But Hizzoner hasn’t explicitly backed the surest method to deal with the problem: killing the geese.
Bottom line, PA officials may say their “wildlife-management programs” are sufficient, yet Flight 1549’s experience suggests otherwise: But for the heroics of its pilots, crew and those who responded, 155 passengers might have died.
The next plane could just as easily come down not in the Hudson River, but a little to the left of it – say, four stories deep in Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.
Or smack in the middle of the George Washington Bridge.
These geese are a deadly menace.
They need to be gone.
Beginning today.