community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
Voices For Animals Gives County Parks Director a Spine
by Voices for Animals of Western PA
Thursday, Aug. 02, 2007 at 1:06 AM
voicesforanimals@gmail.com 1-877-321-4VFA P.O. Box 7181, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Voices For Animals of Western Pennsylvania made a special presentation to Allegheny County Parks Director Mr. Andrew Baechle, in recognition of his role in the recent slaughter of 272 North Park geese.
On the morning of Friday, July 27th, Voices For Animals of Western Pennsylvania (VFA) personally delivered a gift to Allegheny County Parks Director Andrew Baechle, in recognition of his role in the recent slaughter of 272 geese in North Park that VFA believed to be symbolic of his stance regarding the geese since May.
He was presented with a small model of a human spine and told to use it the next time he is faced with this decision. Voices For Animals met with Mr. Baechle, several other county staff, the park naturalist and two representatives from the USDA in May of this year. During that meeting—which included a teleconference call with Mr. David Feld of the GeesePeace organization—Mr. Baechle expressed his satisfaction with the methods presented by GeesePeace, and repeatedly mentioned the organization’s “100% success rate.” He told Voices For Animals the park wanted to work with VFA “as partners,” committed to working with non-lethal methods for a two-year period with the help of GeesePeace, and promised to be back in touch soon. During that same meeting, Mr. Baechle affirmed several times his wish not to see the geese slaughtered.
Fast forward two months, with no serious effort having been made to implement non-lethal methods, and Mr. Baechle makes a 180 degree turnaround and appears in front of the media presenting the slaughter of the geese as a “necessary one-time check” and “humane” method.
Voices For Animals believes that Mr. Baechle sincerely did not want the geese to be killed. He knew that this was not a good long-term method and that this had far wider implications ethically and environmentally. However, his sudden dramatic change of angle despite literally having all evidence to the contrary right in front of him can only mean one thing: he succumbed to political pressure from the office of Dan Onorato to implement a “quick fix” for the purposes of PR spin and political expediency. Therefore, VFA went to his office downtown and hand-delivered him his spine, to remind him that he and other park officials are ultimately accountable to the public who pay their salaries, not to politicians, asking them to have the backbone to speak to the truth in the future.
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