Call it Sully’s revenge.
Just one incident of a plane hitting a goose in the skies around Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark airports was reported from May to November of last year, as the Port Authority and the feds stepped up efforts to clear out the pesky critters.
Three hits were recorded in the same periods in 2007 and ’08, the FAA’s wildlife-strike database shows.
After a flock of Canada geese forced Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger to ditch his US Airways jet in the Hudson River in January 2009, the Port Authority and the Department of Agriculture ramped up their anti-geese efforts.
Last summer, they rounded up 800 geese from the area around Kennedy and La Guardia and had them killed. So far this spring, they’ve oiled 55 goose eggs, to prevent them from hatching, in nine nests on Rikers Island, just north of La Guardia, where Sully’s plane took off.
Agriculture and Port Authority officials say they’re still working out the details of this summer’s goose-fighting plan.
The Agriculture Department’s Wildlife Services has been clearing goose nests from Rikers since 2002 and rounding up geese there since 2004.
There’s evidence the goose population has declined over time — in 2004, workers rounded up 500 geese at Rikers; in 2005 they grabbed less than 300.
Last year, they gathered 111.
“Every year, there have been fewer geese on the island to be removed,” said spokeswoman Carol Bannerman.