Residents of New York City's Brooklyn borough learned Monday that a flock of about 400 Canada geese residing at a local park were captured and euthanized by wildlife authorities.

The geese were removed from Prospect Park on Thursday, The New York Times reported, and were later gassed with a fatal concentration of carbon dioxide.

Authorities in the city have been culling local populations of Canada's namesake goose since a U.S. Airways jetliner carrying 155 people was forced into an emergency landing on the Hudson River in January 2009. Two of the birds had been sucked into its engines, disabling the plane.

Since then authorities have been working to keep the iconic birds 11 kilometres away from the city's major airports, according to a wildlife official quoted by the newspaper. To that end about 1,200 Canada geese were captured in the area last summer.

"It's eerie to see a whole population gone," Anne-Katrin Titze, who fed the geese at Prospect Park every day, was quoted as saying. "There's not one goose on this lake. It looks as though they've been Photoshopped out."

One of the geese that disappeared from the park was known as Target because it had survived being struck by a crossbow bolt in June, and park authorities had been trying to capture it to treat the injury.

More than 100 Canada geese were also recently culled in the city of Bend, Oregon, on concerns that they were defecating in a local park.

The birds were reportedly placed in "garbage-can sized containers" and gassed with carbon dioxide, before being served up as meals at local homeless shelters.

Residents of Bend planned to gather to mourn the birds last Thursday.

"I think a memorial like this will help people console each other," Foster Fell told a local newspaper. "I, myself, in the last few days have been nursing a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat."