Whether goslings live or die at the Central Park Reservoir could be up to two 70-something, nature-loving men who first crossed paths there this winter.

Edward Dorson, a wildlife photographer and regular visitor to the reservoir, learned in 2021 that federal workers were destroying the eggs of Canada geese there as part of a government safety program to decrease bird collisions with airplanes. He tried to stop it.

He reached out to animal rights organizations and wrote letters to various government agencies. He got nowhere.

Then in December, he met Larry Schnapf, a tough-talking environmental lawyer, who spotted Mr. Dorson admiring the birds and introduced himself. Mr. Dorson told him about the nest destruction. Mr. Schnapf, in his 40-year legal career, had mostly focused on redeveloping contaminated properties but had picked up the occasional pro bono passion project. “I told him I take on quixotic pursuits,” Mr. Schnapf said.

Now, they are teaming up to protect the eggs of a small population of Canada geese that nest around the reservoir, a popular attraction for joggers and bird watchers. The battle will undoubtedly be uphill: They are lobbying multiple government agencies during a fraught time in aviation where bird strikes are one of many concerns, on behalf of a bird often described as a nuisance because of its honking cries and the droppings it leaves on lawns, parks and golf courses.

The men say they appreciate the importance of protecting planes. But they are seeking to exempt the Central Park Reservoir from the egg destruction program so that it can serve as a sanctuary for the nesting geese. They argue that Central Park is far enough from the area’s airports that the geese do not pose a major problem.

Mr. Schnapf said he plans to send a cease-and-desist letter to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees five major airports in the region, including Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport and LaGuardia Airport. The agency works with an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the safety program. “I think this is all unlawful,” he said. “These are protected animals.”

Port Authority officials did not comment on the advocacy plans of the two men. But they stressed that government efforts like those underway in Central Park were part of creating safer conditions for air travel.

“Managing wildlife risks — especially from resident Canada geese — near our airports is a life safety imperative and essential to maintaining safe operations,” said Laura Francoeur, the Port Authority’s chief wildlife biologist.

Although Canada geese are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, authorities have obtained a waiver to control the population. The birds, which can weigh as much as 19 pounds and have a wingspan up to 5.5 feet, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, can get sucked into plane engines and bring an aircraft down.

Between 2008 and 2023, there were 451 aviation accidents involving commercial aircraft in the United States, with a total of 17 caused by bird strikes, producing five injuries and no fatalities, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

New York City tightened its grip on Canada geese in 2009, after a collision with a flock caused US Airways Flight 1549, piloted by Chesley B. Sullenberger III, to lose both its engines shortly after it took off from LaGuardia. The plane was forced into an emergency water landing in what is now commonly known as the “miracle on the Hudson.”

The event prompted the Port Authority to ask the Department of Agriculture for help. In 2010, federal wildlife workers took on the management of Canada geese populations within seven miles of the city’s major airports, including in city parks.

Mr. Schnapf calls the current rules an overreach, since Federal Aviation Administration guidelines call for wildlife management only within five miles of airports. A Port Authority spokeswoman said the agency honors all federal regulations, including addressing wildlife hazards within five miles of airports. But she added that the agency will often go beyond that radius when specific threats arise.

Data from the F.A.A. shows that Canada geese strikes at LaGuardia and Kennedy Airports have remained consistent over the last two decades, with between zero and four instances per year.

Canada geese thrive in people-friendly landscapes, and their population has boomed throughout North America over the last four decades. Many geese have become so comfortable in parks and other green spaces, like the reservoir, that they have stopped migrating, becoming year-round residents.

There are about 228,000 resident Canada geese in New York State, up from 150,000 in 2002. The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation would like to see that number shrink to 85,000.

The two men fighting for the Central Park Reservoir’s resident geese were both born in the Bronx, are similar in age and diet (one is a vegetarian, the other a vegan). But the similarities more or less end there.

Mr. Dorson, 77, an accomplished underwater photographer and conservationist with a background in the arts, is a soft-spoken lover of hard-to-love animals — he helped start a shark sanctuary in Palau, in Micronesia. Mr. Schnapf, 72, is a fast-talking, fast-acting networker who is not afraid to make noise.

“I told Ed,” he said, “you’ve got to rattle the bureaucracy.”

Mr. Dorson and Mr. Schnapf are hoping to meet with officials from the Port Authority, the Central Park Conservancy and the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the reservoir, among other decision makers.

”All we’re trying to do is get them to talk to us, so we can come up with a plan so at least some of those eggs can be hatched,” Mr. Schnapf said.

Mr. Dorson admitted that, right now, “I don’t see too many people like me who are worried about the geese.”

“But maybe 10 years from now, when there are no geese here, then people might feel the loss,” he said. “I’d like to change that.”

A federal judge overseeing New York City’s jails took Rikers Island out of the city’s control on Tuesday, ordering that an outside official be appointed to make major decisions regarding the troubled and violent jail complex.

The judge, Laura Taylor Swain, said in a 77-page ruling that the official would report directly to her and would not be a city employee, turning aside Mayor Eric Adams’s efforts to maintain control of the lockups. The official, called a remediation manager, would work with the New York City correction commissioner, but be “empowered to take all actions necessary” to turn around the city’s jails, she wrote.

“While the necessary changes will take some time, the court expects to see continual progress toward these goals,” Judge Swain wrote.

The order comes nearly a decade after the city’s jails, which include the Rikers Island complex, fell under federal oversight in the settlement of a class-action lawsuit. The agreement focused on curbing the use of force and violence toward both detainees and correction officers. A court-appointed monitor issued regular reports on the persistent mayhem.

New York City has held onto its control of Rikers with white knuckles — struggling to show progress and reaching the brink of losing oversight of the jails as critics of the system have called for a receiver. Conditions have not improved, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs and the federal monitor.

The city’s jail population has grown to more than 7,000 from a low of about 4,000 in 2020. And in the first three months of this year, five people died at Rikers or shortly after being released from city custody, equaling the number of detainees who died in all of 2024.

In a statement, lawyers from the Legal Aid Society and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, which represent detainees, said they commended the court’s “historic decision.”

“For years, the New York City Department of Correction has failed to follow federal court orders to enact meaningful reforms, allowing violence, disorder and systemic dysfunction to persist,” said Mary Lynne Werlwas and Debra Greenberger. “This appointment marks a critical turning point.”

The remediation manager will be a receiver in all but name. The official will be granted “broad powers” as plaintiffs had asked, Judge Swain wrote, but will also develop a plan for improvement in concert with the correction commissioner.

Such arrangements are the last resort for a troubled jail or prison. Since 1974, federal courts have put only nine jail systems in receivership, not counting Tuesday’s Rikers order.

The ruling was another blow for Mr. Adams, who is fighting for his political life after the Trump administration dropped corruption charges against him so that he could assist with its deportation efforts. Many of his confidants have also faced investigations, he is on his fourth police commissioner and his approval ratings have hit historic lows.

Now, the mayor, a former police captain, has lost most control of an institution that employs about 5,000 people represented by the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, a union that has been a bastion of political support.

On Tuesday, even as prisoners rights organizations and some of Mr. Adams’s campaign opponents celebrated, the mayor disputed whether Judge Swain’s order constituted a receivership and painted it as a benefit.

“The problems at Rikers are decades in the making,” he said. “We finally got stability.”

In a statement, Benny Boscio, president of the correction officers’ union, said that Judge Swain’s order had preserved the right to representation and collective bargaining, and he made clear that the guards must be reckoned with.

“The city’s jails cannot operate without us,” he said. “And no matter what the new management of our jails looks like, the path toward a safer jail system begins with supporting the essential men and women who help run the jails every day.”

New York City has spent more than $500,000 per inmate annually in recent years, according to city data, well beyond what other large cities have spent, and yet detainees still sometimes go without food or proper medical care.

A New York Times investigation in 2021 found that guards are often stationed in inefficient ways that fail to protect detainees. And although the jail system has consistently been the most well-staffed in the United States — there is roughly one uniformed officer for each inmate at Rikers, according to city data — an unlimited sick leave policy and other uses of leave have meant that there are too few guards present to keep inmates safe.

The class-action lawsuit that led to the takeover, known as Nunez v. City of New York, was settled in June 2015 and required that the jails be overseen by a court-appointed monitor who would issue regular reports on conditions there but would wield no direct power to effect change.

Through those reports, Judge Swain was given an extensive history of the cyclical nature of the jail system’s problems. Through the administration of two mayors and several correction commissioners, the jails continued to devolve, according to prisoners’ rights advocates and the monitor’s reports. In November, the judge found the city in contempt for failing to stem violence and excessive force at the facility, which is currently run by Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie.

Over the years, the city has argued that the Department of Correction has made progress, even as Judge Swain issued remedial orders and the monitor and prisoners’ advocates pointed to backsliding.

In 2023, Damian Williams, then Manhattan’s top prosecutor, joined calls for the appointment of an outside authority to take control of Rikers, saying that the city had been “unable or unwilling” to make reforms under two mayors and four correction commissioners.

On Tuesday, Jay Clayton, whom President Trump appointed last month as interim U.S. attorney, said Judge Swain’s decision was a “welcomed and much needed milestone.”

In a 65-page opinion last year, Judge Swain said that the city and the Department of Correction had violated the constitutional rights of prisoners and staff members by exposing them to danger, and had intentionally ignored her orders for years. Officials had fallen into an “unfortunate cycle” in which initiatives were abandoned and then restarted under new administrations, she wrote.

An inability to operate independently of politics is what has kept Rikers from turning around, said Elizabeth Glazer, the founder of Vital City and a former criminal justice adviser under Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“Every new administration, there’s a reset,” she said. “Every new crisis, there’s a reset.”

Last year, Judge Swain ordered city leaders to meet with lawyers for prisoners to create a plan for an “outside person,” known as a receiver, who could run the system.

The parties met in recent months to try to reach an agreement, in deliberations overseen by the federal monitor, Steve J. Martin. He told the court that the parties and his team had been “actively engaged” in discussions.

In the end, the sides submitted dueling proposals.

The Legal Aid Society and a private law firm representing incarcerated people argued that the court should strip the city of control and install a receiver who would answer only to the court. The receiver should be given broad power to make changes, they proposed, including with regard to staffing and union contracts that govern it.

The receiver, they said, could “review, investigate and take disciplinary or other corrective or remedial actions with respect to violations of D.O.C. policies, procedures and protocols” related to the court order.

In its plan, the city offered to give Ms. Maginley-Liddie dual roles by adding the title of “compliance director” to her responsibilities. The city proposed that she answer to the court on issues related to the consent decree, such as safety and staffing shortages, while answering to the mayor on everything else.

However, the city has had a “a multitude of opportunities” to improve its management of the jails and has “proven unable or unwilling to take advantage of those opportunities,” said Hernandez D. Stroud, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.

“Judge Swain was left no other choice,” he said.

Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting.