US News

DUCK, DUCK, DUCK, GOOSE

It’s goose season!

That’s the battle cry of one local hunter who wants the city to get out of the way so he and others can shoot the pesky varmints before they fell any more human fliers.

Upper East Side resident David Stern says New York needs to ease up on its anti-firearm discharge law so fowl hunters can kill Canada geese around La Guardia and Kennedy airports. Stern hunts wild geese and cooks them afterward.

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“Maybe the city or the Port Authority could license a number of people to hunt there and keep out the waterfowl as best they can,” said Stern, 35, a financial-portfolio manager who grew up in Manhattan and took up hunting a decade ago.

The anti-firearm rule is just one of a gaggle of treaties, laws and regulations that make the five boroughs a refuge for killer geese like those suspected of forcing a US Airways jet to ditch in the Hudson River last week soon after takeoff from La Guardia.

Too bad, says Stern – cooked goose is pretty tasty. He’s got a killer recipe for goose jerky, and chefs have plenty of ways of roasting the birds into a gourmet treat.

From the Queens border east to the Sunken Meadow, Sagitkos and Robert Moses parkways – the closest Canada goose-hunting zone to the city – hunters can bag five geese a day until the season closes on Feb. 10.

If shooting geese were legal in parts of the five boroughs where they threaten airplanes, Stern would like to be out there this morning with his .12-gauge over/under shotgun and Vigour, his trusty bird dog.

“This cold weather is the best weather for it,” Stern said.

bill.sanderson@nypost.com