Happy hunter: Landers eats up national exposure
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Jackson Landers about to skin the tail of an invasive green iguana in the kitchenette of his pop-up camper on Big Pine Key, Florida.PHOTO FROM LANDERS’ BLOG
In July last year Jackson Landers wondered on his blog if anyone would be interested in a semi-formal class on how to hunt deer from a locavore’s perspective. Boy, was he on to something.
In short order, the local insurance broker and brother of über-blogger Waldo Jaquith (and son of Hook award-winning essayist Janis Jaquith) was the subject of a story in the New York Times, got a publishing contract for his book A Locavore’s Guide to Deer Hunting, has partnered with New York City chefs to serve game, and he’s hard at work on a new book called Eating Aliens, about hunting and consuming invasive species (lizards, frogs, and the like), for which he also has a reality TV proposal. (See the trailer here at rumur.com/aliens.)
Just recently, Landers was the subject of another New York Times article as he heads to the Big City to show folks how to cook Canada Geese, which, as recently happened in Charlottesville [Unfriendly skies: Forest Lakes, the Miracle on the Hudson, and Canada Geese, September 2, 2010], were slaughtered in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park over the summer due to concerns about the dangers they present to commercial airplanes. Indeed, it was into the Hudson River that US Airways Flight 1549 landed in January 2009 after geese flew into its engines, and since then authorities have been thinning the population. Last summer, 1,235 geese were rounded up and killed at various sites around New York City, but the Prospect Park thinning was the single biggest, where 400 were removed in a few days.
However, Landers isn’t in New York to save the geese or endorse their slaughtering for the sake of air safety, he’s there to let people know that landfilling all those dead birds is a big waste of food and that they actually make for good eatin’.
“When people taste a Canada goose and say ‘this is terrible,’” Landers told the Times’ Andy Newman, “usually when you track down the history of how the animal was taken and butchered, you might have an animal that’s gut shot and left to sit for a few hours in the back of a truck. If you handled a cow or a domestic chicken the way that a lot of hunters handle their meat, it would taste gamy and vile as well.”
Landers contends that Canada geese actually taste “better than most species of duck.” To prove it, he’ll be teaming up with a Brooklyn chef and Slow Food NYC to show New Yorkers how to cook geese in a two-hour workshop on October 30 called “The Locavore Hunter — Geese Gone Wild!”
Remarkably, Landers still managed to teach his Deer Hunting for Locavores class down here in Charlottesville over this past weekend, but he admits that the November and December courses are questionable. Indeed, his quest to hunt and eat strange animals has been keeping him on the road, including a trip to Georgia to hunt feral hogs.
“I’m mostly hunting at night with a night-vision scope on an AR-15 on this huge farm in the middle of nowhere,” Landers tells the Hook in an email. “It’s a very surreal expedition. I haven’t had internet or cell phone access for more than a few minutes at a time in days.”
“We just finished editing the pilot for the ‘Eating Aliens’ TV show and I’m working on the first half of the new book,” writes Landers on his blog. “By November, I could be fully engaged in working on a full season of the TV show, and if that is the case then I don’t know that there will be any more deer hunting classes offered in the next year.”
I took the class last year and it was amazing. I highly recommend anyone who has the opportunity to take it. Jackson is a great teacher who really understands hunting and preparing game on a different level then anyone I have ever met. I walked away from the class not only with what, how and why I should be hunting, butchering and preparing deer, but the scientific reasons behind what I was doing.
I am itching to get my hands on his book as soon as it comes out.
I am getting a bit bored with my goat. They’re not a native species, are they?
Goats are fine eatins in some countries. When I was down in Laredo they would be in the butcher shop windows.
Have you thought of ants and grasshoppers ? My father must have been ahead of his time; we ate these every New Year’s Eve- covered with chocolate, as a delicacy.
What is really “invasive” is someone like this Landers creep coming to New York to tell US what to do with OUR geese and other animals in our parks.
Landers may find this hard to believe, but there are many thousands of New Yorkers who go to local parks because we ENJOY seeing wildlife and being around what little is left of nature in our city.
It is not what was done or not done with the bodies of 400 gassed geese from Prospect Park that stirred people’s outrage and protest.
It was the fact these animals were rounded up and gassed in the first place!
This barbaric massacre took place in the wee hours of a July morning WITHOUT community NOTIFICATION. Even three months later, we still do not know where the geese were actually taken to be gassed. USDA could not do the dirty deed in the park, because such would have been seen and reported by park goers. Officials fist lied about the gassings, telling park goers the (flightless) geese “flew away.”
What does the young mother tell her children who question, “Mommy, where are the geese?”
What does the amateur photographer say to him or herself when realizing the pretty photos of geese taken four months ago were actually pre-execution photos?
Its painful to look at them now.
What is truly “alien” and “invasive” is people like Landers coming here with a personal agenda of selling books or gaining publicity and telling the rest of us how to think about our wildlife and what to do with it.
Too bad its illegal to cook up invasive humans with sick agendas.
Shame on “The Hook” for wasting valuable space in publishing this garbage. — Ad nauseum.
Have you no respect whatsoever for what happened here in Brooklyn on July 8th to almost 400 geese and their goslings (BABIES) who were rounded up during a most vulnerable stage, feet bound and then thrown into a portable gassing chamber meeting a horrible death? Gassing is torture and was was banned for other animals her years ago.
I am Brooklyn born and bred. Creating this publicity stunt for yourself by taking advantage of the annihilation of these majestic birds is appalling. To many of us here who care about wildlife, including some terrific politicians such as Eric Adams and Letitia James and scores of others who care, this is a slap in the face.
To this “Chef of the Future” I suggest you go back from whence you came and leave NYC’s wildlife alone.
Disgraceful beyond words and incredibly sad.
Why stop at geese? Let’s eat mentally deficient people, they serve no purpose, so let’s serve them as dinner! The homeless? Useless, noncontributing members of society - instead of feeding them FOR Thanksgiving, let’s cook ‘em and feed ON them for the holidays! Do you see what I mean? Just because you CAN cook and eat something doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
The slaughter of NY’s geese was an obscene and disgraceful act prompted by a mayor whose contempt for nature is exceeded only by his lack of ethics and compassion for animals AND people. You cannot make something good out of something that was inherently evil to begin with - to try to justify cooking and eating the geese - semi-tame geese that were considered as pets by the people who enjoyed them in Prospect Park - is not unlike the Nazi’s making lampshades out of the skin of the exterminated Jews.
The REAL chef of the future will most likely be vegan - a far better and more responsible use of the resources of the world in feeding its people, and a FAR, FAR healthier diet. Jackson Landers is nothing more than a gun-crazy good ol’ boy to whom animals are just something to eat, wear and shoot, instead of fascinating fellow creatures to enjoy and learn from. His way of life will eventually pass, since hunting holds less and less interest for most people today as they become better educated and more land gets developed for exploding populations of people, the REAL invasive species.
This man has nothing to interest me - except his departure. Leave our geese alone.
Looks like Landers officially has a stalker, now, huh, PattyA? I’ve seen you trolling every article about this guy I’ve read so far. I bet you have nothing whatsoever to say about all the animals killed by the combines that harvest your soy. I wish I had the energy to be such a hypocrite.
This guy may be a good cook, but he’s just looking to promote himself with this insensitive behavior. He has to know that the USDA would never turn over the bodies of the geese to the public, since they consumed all sorts of contaminated plants and water, and then were killed with lethal gas. No way they were edible. If Mr. Landers wants to come to Brooklyn to learn about how we love our wildlife and want to protect it, fine. But he can leave the publicity stunts at home.
Hah ha— I live in New York and I’ve known Jackson for ten years or more. I’m four blocks from Prospect Park and I’d shoot a goose if Jackson showed me how.
I wonder what those nature lovin New Yorkers think about bedbugs. Geese in the parks are the same thing just bigger.
Pay no mind to the haters and their willful ignorance of the fact that Jackson had nothing to do with the killing of their (suddenly) beloved geese. Max, myself and so many other New Yorkers welcome him to our great city and are eager to learn from him.
@Patty, Mary & Arlene, I don’t think you really understand this at all. If you have a problem with me then I suggest that you discuss it with me personally. You can contact me at and I should be back in front of a computer on Thursday.
The question is not whether animals will die to feed humans. That is going to happen even to provide you with tofu. The question is how much suffering is involved and whether or not we confront that suffering as individuals. A caged chicken in a factory farm wants to live just as much as a goose in a park. A rabbit in a soy field, sliced in half by the combine harvester that makes tofu possible also wants to live just as much as the goose in the park.
So the goose is right in front of you. That makes it a holy cow? I’m guessing that you are willing to eat either chicken or tofu. The difference between eating the goose or the tofu is not a difference between killing or not killing. Its a question of whether or not to confront the reality of the killing. I’ve come to terms with that and I encourage you to do the same.
Jack and Friends:
No, we don’t have to “troll” you. All we have to do is google “geese” and your name comes up repeatedly and not in any positive way for the geese.
The arguments you throw out to justify profiting and gaining publicity from a clandestine injustice so cruel in its actions that even the doers felt compelled to initially lie about it are as inane as the pointless cookbook you are trying to promote and sell. — A cookbook born out of the seeds of secrecy, terror, injustice and massacre when referring to the geese gassed at Prospect Park.
The fact we slaughter 6 million chickens (and other animals) every day in this country for human appetite illustrates that we did not and do not need to kill more. There is no shortage of fowl and other animals for people to eat if so inclined.
Attacking the diets of those who attempt to defend what little wildlife remains in our public parks is pitifully transparent defense mechanism designed to try and divert the issue. It doesn’t work as this is not a discussion about Weight Watchers, “veganism” or McDonalds.
If you have no respect for the animals living in our public parks (or elsewhere) we simply and respectfully request that you show some respect for the thousands of PEOPLE and CHILDREN who grew to love and appreciate these animals for the few short months or years the geese were part of the Prospect Park landscape and lake.
You don’t believe there were that many people who cared about these geese?
Ask to see the names gathered on our petitions or the hundreds of photos we have of geese and the people and children who peacefully and lovingly interacting with them.
You might as well round up the dead dogs and cats “euthanized” in our shelters and advise your pals and the media on “how to cook” them.
Patty, I read your post on the NYT blog where you suggest that gassing the Prospect Park with carbon dioxide would make them unfit for consumption. You really are a little disconnected from your food if you don’t know that you breath CO2 every time you open a bottle of beer, soda, sparkling water, etc. You ingest it when you drink those products
You are apparently not well informed about the threat that invasive exotics pose to enormous numbers of our wild animal populations either.
Mr. Landers is attempting to make people more aware of what they eat by connecting them to its source and reduce the number of harmful invasives at the same time. It’s an admirable and nicely complimentary pair of goals and you seem like the perfect candidate for one of his classes.
Hit the road Jack!
Yes indeed Jack!! Hit the road to NYC and teach them folks about some good eating.
It ought to be fairly clear, but I meant to write “gassing the Prospect Park geese” and also mean to spell breathe correctly. Wish we had an edit function for comments.
Cookie Jar: We breathe in oxygen and exhale CO2. Trees give off oxygen and that apparently is the reason for the city embarking on planting a million trees over the next few years to improve air quality and provide greater oxygen.
The geese gassed from Prospect Park were not killed by opening beer bottles or soda water.
They were taken to some “undisclosed location” and crammed into gas chambers.
Water fowl, by nature, are designed to hold their breaths longer than mammals and most other animals.
According to Carol Bannerman of the USDA, the geese can take “anywhere from a few minutes up to an hour to die by gassing with CO2.”
Ms. Bannerman has never personally witnessed geese gassings, but relates the information “workers” have reported to her.
Co2 was the gas used to exterminate jews in nazi concentration camps during WW2.
All acccounts of these atrocities indicate that the people died horribe and excruciating deaths in the gas chambers.
Reports from some who have witnessed geese gassings indicate that the birds can be heard “thumping” frantically against the steel (windowless) walls of the chambers while they slowly die.
We have in fact, banned gas and decompression chambers for the killing of shelter cats and dogs in New York State because of the cruelty and the fact that younger animals can sometimes survive them.
You and Mr. Landers’ other pals can try to make up all kinds of justifications for the profiting off of animal abuse and cruelty, but you cannot change the FACTS.
THE FACTS ARE:
368 GEESE AND GOSLINGS WERE ROUNDED UP INSIDE A PUBLIC PARK AND GASSED WITH NO USE OF NON-LETHAL ALTERNATIVES FIRST AND NO NOTICE THE COMMUNITY.
GASSING OF WATERFOWL WITH CO2 AND WITHOUT USE OF ANESTHESIA FIRST VIRTUALLY INSURES A STRESSFUL, PAINFUL AND PROLONGED DEATH.
THESE BIRDS WERE APPRECIATED AND EVEN LOVED BY MANY MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY, INCLUDING CHILDREN. THE CLANDESTINE ROUNDUP AND GASSING OF WILDLIFE IN A PUBLIC PARK IS AN AFFRONT TO THE NATURE AND BIRD LOVERS WHO VISIT THE PARK ON DAILY BASIS. IN ESSENCE, IT DISRESPECTS THE PEOPLE.
And finally, we kill 6 million animals in this country every DAY for human consumption. There was no justification to add more.
True, Mr. Landers did not personally go out and kill the geese. But, the fact he seeks to profit off the misery and massacres of wildlife in our city parks, demonstrates a real low for the human condition and human behavior.
As said yesterday, Landers might as well suggest ways to “cook” the cats and dogs being “euthanized’ in shelters. After all, its a pity to let the bodies “go to waste,” isn’t it?
Oh, just to address the ludicrous charge that the geese somehow “threaten” other wildlife populations:
I have photos of mother ducks bringing their tiny ducklings at night to rest within a few feet of a Canada goose family. It wasn’t something witnessed once or twice, but many times and with more than one duck mother.
Obviously, the ducks feel more secure and protected around the geese.
You can try to slap all kinds of denigrating labels on these peaceful, social, devoted and extremely intelligents birds with the hope that most people don’t know anything about them.
But, I challenge anyone to actually go out there, spend some time around Canada geese, observe and even photograph them and the other birds in our parks. Study the REAL interactions between the geese and other animals.
That is, if you can still find any geese after the feds and people like Landers get through smearing, killing or “cooking” them.
PattyA,
While we welcome the opinions of our readers, your comments may be misplaced here. Mr. Landers is simply giving a class on cooking the birds if you so choose. He is not advocating or supporting their slaughter by the feds in New York City. That is not what this article is about. May I suggest you go to our story here, which better presents the issue that you are so passionate about:
http://readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2010/9/1/unfriendly-skies-miracle-on-the-hudson-forest-lakes-and-the-question-of-canada-geese
You are apparently not too up on your history (or chemistry) either Patty. Google Zyklon B to read about the hydrogen cyanide used in Nazi gas chambers. They also used carbon monoxide, which is very different than carbon dioxide. It’s all about concentrations anyway. Cherry pits produce cyanide if we swallow them, but a few won’t do any harm. Geese killed by being gassed with CO2 would not be made inedible because of CO2.
Correcting your ignorance about how food is produced in this country would take far more space than I could reasonably use here. But, to keep it simple, those geese are essentially raised in a “free range” environment. Free range production of meat is considered to be one of the most humane methods.
The geese are not really “wildlife.” They would not be in most of their current range if they were not provide artificial environments to live in and food sources that would not exist naturally. Canada geese are “naturally” migratory birds.
Dave:
Thank you for the reference. I will look in to it later, but have to go to animal shelter shortly to rescue a cat and inquire about a dog.
I don’t know that my comments are truly “misplaced” here as I was merely trying to address the rationalizations for “cooking” geese from a public park, as well as the denigrating and false labels attached to these animals.
It is very disappointing that the Hook gave publicity to this gentleman who obviously seeks to profit from something extremely controversial and upsetting to many people.
I and a couple of others may be the only ones addressing this disturbing article, but please know there are many hundreds if not thousands of PP community residents deeply troubled by this “invasion” and massacre of a big part of the park’s wildlife.
We are in the process of gathering names on petitions and will present these to local and park leaders come the spring.
In the meantime, your publication might consider giving “equal time” to proponents for the wildlife in our parks, including Canada geese, as it has allotted time to someone advocating for destruction of geese and other animals for a recipe book.
Thank You
They make mention of the geese that flew into flight 1549 and how the city is thinning the goose population due to the Hudson incident, however they failed to mention that those geese were migratory geese that flew into the engines at 5,000 feet - not the resident city park geese who flew no more than perhaps a hundred feet in the air and not near the airports. Gassing these birds is horrific- as PattyA mentions it takes them almost 45 minutes to die. Perhaps folks need to see the videos of the feds rounding them up and stuffing them into these mobile gassing chambers.
I truly take offense at folks who promote themselves at another’s expense. In this case, the population of 400 defenseless birds and their babies in a city park.
Invasive species, become invasive because of human intervention. Many do not realize that the Canada Goose is a conservation success story, having almost been driven to extinction in the early 1900’s and then after flocks were found, they were repopulated into areas and acclimated to areas that we then decided we would just like ourselves to inhabit (parks , golf courses, suburban areas).
I noticed there was an iguana tail in the photo of this article. We can thank the illegal pet trade for wandering pythons, iguanas, among others that are discarded after growing too large for an owner to be able to handle and care for. FYI- population numbers of iguanas in their native habitat are down due to the introduction of other invasive animals that prey on the eggs and hatchlings. What will happen to that recipe?
Perhaps we should just stop meddling.
All I ask is that you please keep your night-vision scope out of Prospect Park.
Mr. Landers may not be particularly advocating for the killing of geese in order to tie-in with his book, but I find it uncomfortably curious that he is trying to drum up interest in cooking geese while NY in particular is desperately trying to get public support for their despicable extermination of these living creatures. The public is uneasy with the idea of killing the birds and dumping them in landfills rather than eating them. I personally find Mr. Landers timing oddly convenient with the city’s nefarious goals and frankly, I deplore both - their alliance is a marriage made in Hell. And I will have no part of either.
Mr. Landers, GO HOME. NOW. Your cook is goosed.
Here’s some questions for you all:
If you had to make a choice (I know that some of you would prefer that all the geese be left alone, but indulge us), would you rather have the feds come in and gas the geese and throw them in a landfill? Or would you rather have them killed cleanly, dressed properly, and served for dinner? Which shows more respect for the animal?
The fact of the matter is that humans kill animals for food. How should the killing be done?
Dave McNair
quote: Officials fist lied about the gassings, telling park goers the (flightless) geese “flew away.”
This is the most disturbing thing I see in this entire thread so far. Once again, government agencies lying and denying when approached with an allegation of wrongdoing.
There is a big difference between doing something which is not popular, or more correctly which riles up a small very vocal group of opponents, and “wrongdoing.” Nothing that I’ve read so far indicates in any way that laws were violated or that proper procedures were not followed. A New York TImes article on the subject says “City parks officials granted signed permission for the removal of the birds.”
They were not flightless geese either, they were molting, but I doubt if many of the people who are complaining here would notice something like that or be aware of its impact on the birds’ ability to fly.