Worldlog Week 23 – 2008

In the past week, there has been much commotion about intended plans to gas thousands of geese in our province of North Holland because they allegedly are bothersome.
The province of North Holland granted an exemption throughout the entire province to allow the shooting of 12,000 grey geese, as well as the complete extermination of all the white-fronted geese, barnacle geese and Canadian geese that reside here in the summer. This exemption was granted to the Fauna Management Unit (Faunabeheereenheid), an alliance of farmers, hunters and land managers such as Landscape North Holland (Landschap Noord-Holland), State Forestry Management (Staatbosbeheer) en Nature Monuments (Natuurmonumenten). These organisations are partly responsible for the policy geared toward nothing more than fulfilling the wishes of the agriculturalists. Scientific research has done little to prove that the planned preventative actions will lead to lesser numbers. There is not even a relation proven between the numbers of geese and the claimed damage on agriculture. According to current law, extermination is not allowable. Not even if the province views it as “just in the summer.”

On Sunday night 1 June, an exemption was granted to capture and gas 6000 grey geese on the Dutch island Texel. The company Duke Fauna Management would take on the job. At the request of Fauna Protection (De Faunabescherming), a judge nullified the exemption as per direct via the telephone. Duke chose not to wait for the judge’s decision. Even worse, at the stroke of midnight it turns out the elimination had already begun. According to Duke, 500 geese were gassed before the judge could intervene. Like a thief in the night, while it was already quite well known that there was a good chance the judge was going to forbid it. Particularly at night, there are great risks for terribly disrupting all sorts of protected species. The elimination of 6000 geese would only mean that other geese from elsewhere would come quickly and fill the created space again. The 500 gassed geese died a pointless death.
The judge decided on 2 June to forbid the province of North Holland to kill off the geese for now.

The Party for the Animals is absolutely against the killing of geese. In May, the parliamentary Party for the Animals already asked Minister of Agriculture Verburg parliamentary questions regarding this issue.

The fate of the geese is far from definite and we are calling on you to help change the mind of Peter Visser, the provincial representative from the province of North Holland.

Send a protest mail
Help change the mind of the representative and send this protest mail to visserp@noord-holland.nl.

Dear Mr. Visser,

As representative of the Partij voor de Arbeid, you are responsible for the fauna policy of North Holland. You have given permission to kill off 12,000 grey geese, white-fronted geese and barnacle geese, including their young.

You have decided that the geese need to be cleared away as if they are lifeless objects. Meanwhile, it is not even known exactly how many geese there are or which damage the geese incur, if any.

I find it incomprehensible that you are not only breaking the law by doing this, but also that you apparently are ignoring scientific reports. In addition, I hold you responsible for any animal suffering that may be created when your rash measure takes effect.

I urge you to rethink your position, consider all aspects of the fauna policy and invest energy in animal-friendly alternatives to counteract and prevent any nuisance from the geese.

I anxiously await your response.

Kind Regards,