NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Animal advocates held a vigil outside a Long Island high school on Wednesday after the school district hired contractors to kill dozens of geese that had camped out on the grounds.
The Islip School District commissioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services unit to cull approximately 200 Canadian geese from the grounds outside Islip High School, advocacy group Long Island Orchestrating for Nature wrote on its Facebook page.
The culling took place on July 1, according to the group’s page.
“I started crying when I heard about it. I just couldn’t deal with it,” a wildlife rehabilitator who attended Wednesday’s vigil told 1010 WINS. “You have to coexist with wildlife. Find humane ways to get rid of them.”
The school district’s superintendent, Dennis O’Hara, told 1010 WINS he is new to the district, and said he would look to solve problems without killing animals going forward.
The district has purchased a machine it will use to pick up goose droppings, he said. It is looking into adopting a Border Collie to scare birds away, he noted.