Gennaro questions Conservancy on toxic yew plants

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is for David Saltonstall.

The person to David's left, what's your name, sir?

Roger Mosier.

Okay, and so what's your title?

Chief of Park Operations for the Consumer.

Chief of Park Operations.

So it was you that authorized the planting of the Japanese yews all over the park?

Is that you?

The yews.

The yews are a ubiquitous ornamental shrub in North America.

But it was planted.

Northeast, yes, it was planted.

Right, but they are toxic to...

Every animal that is native to the park or any animal that goes through the park or migrates through it or somebody walking the dark, you understand this, right?

There are a number of plants in any park that have some level of toxicity.

Yeah, but you went out of your way to plant these for aesthetics, knowing that animals could die.

The U is essentially original to the park.

We have planning plans from the 1800s that show that it was present.

been regularly planted throughout the 20th century and at a time when horses were much more ubiquitous in the park and everyone has lived together for that period of time.

And as far as toxicity- But you have no idea how many animals have been killed by them.

Like, you don't know anything.

You don't know.

The, the,

All right, enough for you.

Enough for you.

I'm done.

I'm going to go to David now.

And so you talked about, you know, animal habits and, you know, horse habits and features and, you know, how they react.

Do you know anything about horses?

I am not a veterinarian.

That's not why I'm here.

I think you've heard abundant testimony from experts today that horses are prey animals.

But you talked about bolting.

You know, you talked about bolting.

And so do you know what kind of horses the industry uses?

Like, do you know the difference between like a hot blood and cold blood?

Do you know the difference?

I am not a veterinarian.

I've seen the results.

Well, let me tell you something, okay?

It's just like the industry uses what we call draft horses or cold bloods.

And these horses are bred to pull a plow all day long.

And the amount of work that they have to do in order to pull a carriage is nothing compared to what they have to do if they were plowing a field.

But the industry uses these horses because they are much less likely to spook because that is their temperament.

A saddle horse is a hot blood.

They'll spook for anything in between, like a...

combination like would be a warm blood, which is also could be a saddle horse and could pull a little wagon.

Warm blood would be fine, you know, for the work that they have to do, but they prefer to use the cold blood because it's a much more stable temperament.

And so for you to be commenting on something that you know nothing about, not to mention the fact that, you know, you've got hundreds and hundreds of

unlicensed, illegal pedicabs, and people have died in pedicabs, but now you're coming down on the horse carriage.

I think it's disgraceful, both of you.

Okay, that's it, thank you.

Stop, no clapping.

We've said this before.

All right, we're done with the panel, thank you.

We appreciate it.

Next panel.

Alexis Lawson.

Pete Donahue, Alexander Kemp,

G.

David Koch, Mindy Pless, and Joshua Sarsfield.

All right, before this panel starts, I wanna stress to everyone, there needs to be decorum here, because I'm telling you, and I've said it once, I'm gonna have people removed, and I will do it.

So just, you know, it's a very fraught emotional issue.

We're trying to hear everybody out.

But people have to have decorum here, all right?

So if you want to stay in the room and listen to everything that's going on, please do that.

Thank you.

Who's going first here?