By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
CITY HALL — More than 100 protesters gathered at City Hall Thursday to demand that the city stop euthanizing Canada geese, describing the killings as an "animal Holocaust."
Geese are being put down by the thousands under a city program to reduce the likelihood of midair collisions between the big birds and aircraft. The most dramatic goose versus airplane episode involved a US Airways jetliner that crash-landed safely in the Hudson after hitting a flock of geese.
Under the plan, the number of Canada geese in the city could be reduced to 4,000 from the current population of 20,000 to 25,000, the New York Times reported.
Trappers working for the city recently rounded up and gassed nearly 400 geese in Brooklyn's Prospect Park alone.
But advocates for the geese say the killings are unnecessary.
"Stop the senseless killing of our urban wildlife, stop sending thousands of resident Canada geese and their babies to gas chambers," an official from the advocacy group Friends of Animals told the protesters.
The official, Edita Birnkrant, the group's New York director of advocacy, said her organization has received hundreds of letters from New Yorkers who are "outraged and heartbroken" over the killings.
Adele Murphy, 75, who lives in Greenwich Village, said that because the vast majority of the geese that live in the city's parks live there year-round, they don't pose a risk to planes.
"It's wanton murder," she said.
The event came two days after protesters rallied in front of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Upper East Side home for the same cause.
Bloomberg has made his position clear, saying that, when it comes to geese, it's us versus them.
"People are not going to stop flying and we have to make a decision," Bloomberg told reporters at a press conference last month. "It's geese or human beings and I can tell you where I come out on that."
But those at Thursday's protest aren't convinced.
"I've been here all morning crying. It's very emotional for me," said Brooklyn's Rachel Trachtenburg, 16. "It''s an animal Holocaust."
Sarah Tohm, 25, who lives in the East Village, wore a gas mask to demonstrate her opposition.
"I'm horrified that the City of New York is gassing to death an entire species for doing nothing wrong," she said.
Jill Doornick, 68, an animal rehabilitator and the founder of Animal Nation, brought along a stuffed goose, which she carried around on her shoulder.
She said that geese are "elegant" and great parents, and that the policy is "teaching our children it's okay to kill."
Brooklyn City Council members Letitia James and Stephen Levin were also on hand, along with State Sen. Eric Adams.
Adams spoke passionately about how the decision to kill the geese has become a serious moral issue.
"This moment is going to define us as human beings," he said. "We're on a slippery slope."
