Monday, November 07, 2011

Follow up on Charles River White Goose Bert and his adventures on Sunday, City Council Recommendation

1. Angelynn reports.
2. Your editor responds.
3. Angelynn.
4. Your editor.
5. Angelynn: City Council recommentation?
6. Your editor: Jamake Pascual.


1. Angelynn reports.

Angelynn reports on facebook:

Bert was on Agassiz at 6 am. My neighbors and I tried to make him comfortable on our entry stairway until we could get help from Animal Control or the Animal Rescue League of Boston. (Sadly, we didn't know about your organization or about the ongoing battle for habitat of these white geese.) I accidentally spooked him at 10 am when I went out to check on him and that's when he went down the hill, down Hurlbut, and, apparently, across Mass Ave. I'm so grateful to the people over there for knowing how to contact you and help him.

2. Your editor responds.

Thank you for the follow on and for your great help to Bert.

Clearly, crossing Massachusetts Avenue would have been a very frightening and dangerous experience.

For the information of those not expert on Cambridge, MA, Agassiz Street is about two streets west of Massachusetts Avenue and the park where Bert wound up, which in turn is about half way between Harvard and Porter Square, closer to Porter. It is a beautification of an air duct from the Red Line.

3. Angelynn.

I do not have that photo and do not know Diana. I'd love to see it as well. BTW, he had some blood traces on his feathers, mostly on his chest, and one red spot on his side that may have been a puncture wound. Would it have been possible for a hawk to carry him all the way over here from the BU bridge area?

4. Your editor.

This is so nice. It looks like quite a few people were involved in helping out this fine Emden Goose.

Clearly, from what you have told me, he does not seem that badly hurt.

The trauma involved in leaving the Charles River again would far exceed any value of having him see a vet.

We had one goose who was stabbed in the side when Bumpy, the leader of the gaggle was killed. She had one leg useless because of the injury. She hopped around for five months on that one leg, healed and eventually returned to normal walking and being not identifiable from the rest of the gaggle.

The core problem on the Charles and at Alewife is a city council which lies about its really rotten attitude concerning animals and the environment. This is combined with a massive organization created by the city manager and his predecessor over 35 years. The city manager’s organization and the city councilors’ organizations combine to do a lot of lying.

If they could not get away with their lies, they would not do the terrible things they do.

5. Angelynn: City Council recommentation?

Are there any candidates in tomorrow's election that you can confidently endorse?

6. Your editor: Jamake Pascual.

The situation in the city council race is so bad that the Cambridge Chronicle condemned pretty much the lot of them, incumbents and challengers, and then made the absolutely minimal number of endorsements possible.

The heartless environmental destruction and animal abuse is inextricably linked to “reprehensible” treatment (to quote the Superior Court judge) of one city employee in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The jury awarded $3.5 million penal damages in addition to $1.1 million real damages. The appeals court expressed its disgust at Cambridge’s appeal by refusing to issue a formal opinion and then speaking of “ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.”

The sickness is all one big problem.

The judges and jury clearly were sending a message: fire the city manager without his golden parachute and possibly without his pension.

Almost all the candidates did not want to hear the message.

The only candidate I know of who would fire the Cambridge City Manager because of the destruction of the life of Malvina Monteiro is Jamake Pascual.

I recommend bulleting for Jamake Pascual to send a very clear message, the more the merrier.

Bert, member of the Charles River White Geese gaggle, is saved

One of the Charles River White Geese had an eventful day on November 6.

His savior, Diana, calls him Bert. They found him wandering in the park at 1705 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge.

This is open space ancillary to the Red Line subway halfway between Harvard and Central Square. How he got there is impossible to guess and probably not very nice.

Diana reports:

******

Thanks for your help earlier today. We successfully managed to capture "Bert" the goose from where we found him wandering around in the parking lot here, ~3 miles from the BU bridge), and dropped him off with what looked like the rest of his flock, down the stairs at the base of the bridge on the Cambridge side. He was definitely the same breed/species (fairly large body, orange bill, white feathers, orange webbed feet, blue eyes, etc.)--see photos from when we dropped him off, attached.

If you need any help with your cause in the future (or help with more geese rescue...this little guy actually didn't give us much trouble at all, once we had him all bundled up in the car), please don't hesitate to contact me.

Diana

*******


Diana provided two photos taken at the Goose Meadow when she dropped off Bert. They came over odd, probably because of “improvements” in Yahoo. I cannot get either uploaded directly to the Blog.

I have succeeded in posting the second photo, of the nesting area, posted on facebook, Charles River White Geese. I cannot get Bert posted. He, very clearly, is an Emden Goose, one of the two primary breeds.

I have downloaded the photo of the nesting area and uploaded it here. This area was lush and green until the undergrowth was destroyed by the DCR rather clearly acting through the Charles River Conservancy. In the background is the BU Bridge. To the right is undestroyed and excellent vegetation bordering the construction.

The bare dirt would be like that vegetation except for the really bad people destroying the environment and the animals.



















I have invited Diana to post Bert’s photo directly on facebook. I will pass it on to the blog when I can.

I will hopefully follow up in coming days with related photos of the Destroyed Nesting Area I took in September.