#Murder most fowl: USDA mistakenly euthanizes 86 Long Island geese

Nature lovers are honking after learning that 86 geese from a Nassau County park were accidentally euthanized in June by the USDA.

The agency mistakenly categorized the geese of Milburn Pond in Baldwin, NY as an airplane safety risk, CBS News reported.

Trouble is, the pond is nearly 10 miles away from the nearest airport, JFK. Geese are only rounded up and killed in parks less than seven miles from an airport.

“They indicated in a letter, official letter to us, that they did make a mistake. They were very, very sorry about that,” Nassau County Deputy County Executive Brian Schneider said of the USDA.

The agency tried to smooth the ruffled feathers by assuring that the birds were humanely put down and their meat provided to local food banks.

But animal activists are still crying fowl.

“Apologies are meaningless to the 86 lives, the mothers and their babies that were slaughtered right here,” complained John Di Leonardo of Long Island Orchestrating for Nature.

“I mean, there are community members who live along this pond here who are heartbroken.”

Geese can bring down an airplane if they’re sucked into a jet engine during a so-called “bird strike” — as infamously happened in 2009 causing the emergency landing known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.”

A flock of Canada geese struck the Charlotte, NC-bound Airbus A320 after it left LaGuardia Airport.

Thanks to the steely calm of veteran pilot Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the 150 souls on board survived the engineless plane’s descent into the Hudson River.

A USDA spokesperson told CBS, “We will be taking additional steps in the future to ensure this doesn’t occur again.”