Urgent: Rally 12pm Today to Protest USDA Slaughter of Wild Turkeys in Staten Island

Urgent: Rally 12pm Today to Protest
USDA Slaughter of Wild Turkeys in Staten Island

Little do the turkey and rooster on the grounds of South Beach Psychiatric Center realize what fate - not to mention the USDA - has in store for them.
(Staten Island Advance/Virginia N. Sherry)

Please join GooseWatch NYC, community leader John M. Mancuso , and residents of Staten Island and beyond today at 12 PM to speak out against USDA's killing of Staten Island's wild turkey population.

Where: Seaview Ave and Father Capodanno Blvd., Staten Island ( See Map )
When: 12 PM Noon, Today, Wednesday August 14, 2013

It's a story we know too well. Brooklyn residents were shocked in 2010 when more than 300 geese were rounded up in Prospect Park by USDA Wildlife Services, and here again New York City residents are outraged over the cruel and unwarranted slaughter of Staten Island's wild turkeys. The USDA refuses to provide any opportunity for public comments, transparency, or information regarding where or when they plan to kill what animals.

We said it wouldn't end with geese, and if it wasn't clear before, it should be clear now - USDA Wildlife Services kills for any reason they think they can get away with to justify their killing, and they are motivated by profit, not human health or safety. This situation obviously could have been avoided. Please come out tomorrow if you can, and help spread the word, to expose this cruel and unnecessary slaughter.

Here's the story from this morning's Staten Island Advance, we currently are in the process of gathering more information:

Feds round up wild turkeys on Staten Island for slaughter

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- They survived the ravages of Hurricane Sandy but it's now off to the slaughterhouse for the flock of turkeys -- despised by detractors and loved by fans -- who made their home on the Ocean Breeze campus of the South Beach Psychiatric Center on Seaview Avenue.

The "capture removal" operation started early Monday morning, carried out by personnel from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) wearing blue T-shirts marked USDA, according to eyewitnesses.

Using pellets to attract the birds into large black nets, "they were picking the turkeys up by their necks and feet, and throwing them into plastic crates," one psychiatric center worker, clearly upset by what she had witnessed, told the Advance. The birds were piled four crates high in the back of two white pickup trucks, "and then they just let them sit," she said...