Early Brooklyn Hawk "Problem"

While perusing the "Brooklyn Daily Eagle" archives on the Brooklyn Public Library website I came across this little gem:

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Hawks Driving Birds Away

Correspondent Offers a Suggestion
(?) Anent Prospect Park

To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle:

While strolling through Prospect Park one morning last week I was astonished at the large number of sparrow hawks, which infested the park. Although I looked and listened carefully, I neither saw nor heard a single wren, catbird, goldfinch or woodpecker. All of these birds could be see in the park in large numbers a few years ago. The only birds to be seen now are a few (?) birds and robins and a number of hawks. In Central Park all sorts of birds can be seen. Something should be done by the Parks Department to thin out the hawks in Prospect Park, otherwise the small birds will be terminated and later in the season the insects and caterpillars will destroy and disfigure the trees and shrubbery. In Central Park the employes prowl around early in the morning with a gun and many of the hawks are shot and others go to safer quarters. Perhaps, if some of our game clubs were permitted to hunt the hawks they would be wiped out.

A Lover of Birds
Brooklyn, April 30, 1900

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I love the idea that park employees "prowled" the parks with firearms. Also, who would ever want to hurt such a beautiful animal?