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The animal activist group Long Island Orchestrating for Nature (LION) is accusing officials at Islip High School of hiring the USDA to gather up the geese, their babies, and kill them.
It remains unclear if the geese were killed, though according to LION, a whistleblower said that the district has been using taxpayer money to round up and murder mother geese and their babies.
“Islip High School (is) a school bordering an inlet of the Great South Bay, a natural home to Canada geese,” they said.
"The district has been rounding up and killing geese year after year, despite rounding up gassing birds being notoriously cruel and ineffective, resulting in a cruel and endless cycle of animal cruelty.”
In response to the missing geese, LION organized a change.org petition that garnered nearly 3,000 signatures in less than 24 hours.
According to LION, “killing unwanted geese requires rounding up and slaughtering mothers and babies during molting season—when the birds lose their flight feathers and are most helpless.
“Trappers set up portable pens, bait the geese, and herd the defenseless animals inside. Geese will then be grabbed by the legs or wings and thrown into crates and loaded onto trucks.”
A vigil for the geese organized by LION was scheduled for around noontime on Wednesday, July 7 at the high school.
In a statement, new Islip Schools Superintendent Dennis O’Hara said that the high school has contended with the geese for years, and after exhausting their options they were removed from campus.
“For many years, Islip High School has explored various options regarding goose droppings littered on school property. After many avenues were explored and tested, geese were removed from our grounds.”
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