Doug Oster, Post-Gazette Casey Brown, of Regent Square, a member of Voices for Animals of Western Pennsylvania, stands in front of St. Cyril of Alexandria Church in Brighton Heights before the 10:30 a.m. Mass yesterday. Click photo for larger image. Video: Protesters object to goose kill Previous coverage: Issue One: Goose kill at North Park (07/22/07) Opinion: No harm, no fowl: The county was right to thin the goose flock (07/21/07) A wild goose chase ends in death for 272 birds (07/18/07)

Angela Alampi didn't know what to think when she stepped off the bus yesterday morning in front of St. Cyril of Alexandria Church in Brighton Heights on her way to 10:30 Mass. The curb was lined with sign-carrying protesters, upset about the killing of 272 geese in North Park last week.

So she started a dialogue with the members of Voices for Animals of Western Pennsylvania, the group that had organized the protest.

"I can understand," Mrs. Alampi said. "I don't like to see anything killed. When a butterfly comes in, I catch it in my hand and let it go."

But she really didn't see what all the fuss was about the geese.

"The Lord made animals that we can eat," she said. "Don't we eat chickens?"

The protesters picked the church because Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato worships there. The group blames him for going back on an agreement it says was made with North Park officials in May.

"We're basically here to shame him for lying to us and killing the geese, to alert his fellow parishioners to the moral hypocrisy," said Lindsay Zurosky, a coordinator of Voices for Animals who feels betrayed by the county's actions.

"I shook [county parks Director] Andrew Baechle's hand and felt confident that these geese were not going to be killed," she said. "We're outraged and feel a lot of sorrow that they have been."

But parishioner Alice Murtha of Brighton Heights believes the only reason the protesters chose the church location was to get attention from the news media.

"They have every right to protest," she said, "but why aren't they in front of the City-County Building where the decision was made?"

Ms. Zurosky said that the slaughter of the geese was an ineffective method for dealing with the problem.

"The park is still great for geese to go to and there's going to be 272, if not more, back next year," she said.

She prefers nonlethal controls like border collie harassment, using sound devices as scare tactics, grass mowing to inhibit nesting, and, as a last resort, egg addling and oiling which prevents the birth of new goslings.

Park officials had met with Geese Peace, a group that emphasizes effective long-term solutions to wildlife conflicts. Some of the nonlethal controls it had suggested were being used at the park, but in many cases were not properly applied.

"I guess this was the quickest way to handle it," Ms. Zurosky said sadly, "though not the ethical way to do it. It's just a real waste and disrespect of sentient emotional life.

"Geese mate for life. The park is incredibly vacant now and the geese are mourning for the loss of their mates."