Port Authority killed 20,000 animals over past 2 years...some endangered

By Kate Briquelet

March 2, 2014

In 2012-2013 the Port Authority killed (from left to right) 19 red-tailed hawks, 4 red foxes and 5,729 laughing gulls.Photo: Corbis, AP, Getty Images

The Port Authority killed 20,000 animals over the past two years — including three bird species deemed endangered or threatened, The Post has learned.

The agency shotgunned a northern harrier at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport — even though the hawk is endangered in the state, according to 2012-13 data obtained through a Freedom of Information request.

Teterboro’s shooters also zapped an American kestrel, a small falcon listed as threatened in New Jersey. And hunters at JFK Airport offed 11 ospreys, which are labeled as at-risk in New York.

Animal conservation groups were outraged.

“We find it upsetting they discontinued [nonlethal controls] . . . and decided it was more cost-effective to just shoot them,” said Glenn Phillips of New York City Audubon Society.

The most targeted animal was the laughing gull, with 5,729 killed at JFK Airport, whose nearby marshes are New York’s only breeding colonies for the birds.

PA contractors also killed 3,203 European starlings, 2,445 herring gulls and 1,908 mourning doves.

Even a tiny monk parakeet was not spared the fusillade, which is meant to keep runways clear of engine-jamming critters.

“A parakeet?” fumed Priscilla Feral, president of Darien, Conn.-based Friends of Animals, which sued the USDA last year over the PA’s killing of snowy owls.

“The idea that parakeets would bring down an aircraft is ridiculous,” she said. “This gives you an idea of how trigger-happy they [the PA] are.”

But birds weren’t the only animals in the cross hairs: Tarmac hunters also killed four red foxes, 11 coyotes, 44 muskrats, 62 woodchucks and 11 white-tailed deer. Eighty-two eastern cottontail rabbits were killed at Newark and JFK airports, along with 44 black-tailed jack rabbits at JFK.

“They take a kill-first approach,” said David Karopkin, founder of GooseWatch NYC, an urban-wildlife advocacy group.

“There’s no incentive to take a long-term look at this issue. Killing is a way for them to pat themselves on the shoulder and say they’re protecting people.”

The PA’s extermination of animals began in the early 1990s but gained attention in 2009 when Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger crash-landed a US Airways flight on the Hudson River after Canada geese stalled the Airbus A320’s twin engines.

New York state wildlife-management permits say hunters may not harm endangered and threatened species or animals of special concern.

In New Jersey, specialists may use only “nonlethal scare devices” on endangered and threatened species, state permits say.

PA spokesman Ron Marsico said the agency has a permit to shoot the osprey because they “posed immediate threats to aviation safety and did not respond to nonlethal harassment.”

He also explained that the harrier and kestrel were killed because “nonlethal control efforts were not effective” and that state and federal authorities were notified.

Nearly 95 percent of the PA’s wildlife-control measures were nonlethal, the agency claims.

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Animals killed by the Port Authority in 2012-2013 at area airports:

Laughing gull: 5,729
European starling: 3,203
Herring gull: 2,445
Mourning dove: 1,908
Brown-headed cowbird: 1,070
Canada goose: 997
Atlantic brant: 912
Ring-billed gull: 798
Rock pigeon: 723
Double-crested cormorant: 436
Great black-backed gull: 414
Red-winged blackbird: 335
Mallard: 331
Barn swallow: 234
House sparrow: 141
Killdeer: 125
Eastern cottontail rabbit: 82
Fish crow: 69
Woodchuck: 62
Snow bunting: 58
Mute swan: 51
Great egret: 46
Black-tailed jackrabbit: 44
Muskrat: 44
American black duck: 42
Great blue heron: 24
Least sandpiper: 22
Raccoon: 21
Red-tailed hawk: 19
Virginia opossum: 18
American crow: 16
Boat-tailed grackle: 12
Norway rat: 12
American oystercatcher: 11
Coyote: 11
Osprey: 11*
Striped skunk: 11
White-tailed deer: 11
Common grackle: 9
Ring-necked pheasant: 9
American robin: 5
American woodcock: 5
Snowy owl: 5
Northern mockingbird: 4
Red fox: 4
American kestrel: 3**
Snow goose: 3
Common raven: 2
Wild turkey: 2
American wigeon: 1
Black-crowned night heron: 1
Lesser yellowlegs: 1
Monk parakeet: 1
Northern harrier: 1***
Red-throated loon: 1
Semipalmated sandpiper: 1
Song sparrow: 1
Turkey vulture: 1
Unknown rodent: 1
Wood duck: 1
*     Of special concern
**   Threatened
*** Endangered