MUTE SWANS

[Tim Boucher]

In Maryland, DNR has and continues to use several techniques. Egg oiling
(also used to control cormorant populations) can be difficult. It can be
hard to find nests and well, I love it when people who have never
encountered an large animal defending young start opining that the eggs
should be addled or oiled. In an editorial published in the Washington Post,
TV host Montel Williams - whose sole connection to/knowledge of the issue
was that he went to Annapolis and thus has seen the Chesapeake Bay - voiced
this opinion.

In addition, egg oiling and addling are a drain on the extremely limited
resources of Maryland DNR, diverting attention from other natural resource
activities.

Remember that swans are long-lived and have a long reproductive life, so if
you tried to maintain a population of 500, and missed even a few nests each
year, the population would actually grow, albeit more slowly than an
uncontrolled population.

As the majority report from the Mute Swan Task Force to the Maryland
Secretary of Natural Resources explains, since oiling/addling actually just
slows the growth of the population, ultimately there will be more adult
swans to kill and more nests to find and more eggs to oil/addle.

Ellen Paul
Chevy Chase MD

In closing, I would just like to say: Nutria. Zebra mussels. Northern
Snakeheads. The only difference between these species and Mute Swans is....?

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[Barry K. MacKay]

Yeah...I agree with Ellen on this with one small caveat.  In northern
Ontario there was a community that was very pleased with egg-oiling results,
applied to Canada Geese, which are also a long-lived species.  

It is also another of the species targeted by wildlife managers (as I've
indicated, the "alien" card will be played if it can be, otherwise other
rationales are put forth), although more benignly in Canada than in the U.S.
Except for two examples in B.C. and one experimental effort in Toronto many
years ago, there has been no lethal culling of the species in Canada And
there seems to be a greater tolerance for them...they're all over Markham,
where I live, but folks seem to accept them.

There are also new developments in oral avian contraceptives, most notably
by OvoControl, a U.S. based firm that has received permission to use the
product on geese and Rock Pigeons in some jurisdictions.  Presumably it
would work for Mute Swans (not that I advocate it, nor do I for Canada Geese
except for as a lesser choice where emotions rule out more effective
measures or dictate cruel practices, but I think it can be an excellent
product for Rock Pigeons).  Erik Wolf, the developer of the product, has
data showing its essential long term harmlessness (it has to be applied each
year), and harmlessness to non-target species who ingest it, although the
obvious challenge is to develop species-specific feeding protocols (there
has been progress in this for Canada Geese, btw).

My reluctance is that it feeds into arguments that are often quite specious
that there is a "need" to reduce various species (the list is huge...pretty
well anything that (a) is common, and (b) is noticed) and a stop-gap
solution seen to be easier than some other methodologies that are ultimately
far more effective, thus cost effective (such as habitat modification).  

BTW, I HAVE encountered many wild animals.  I have wrestled with a fully
adult and very vigorous Mute Swan, and while I survived that only bruised
but intact, I have been wounded by a Red-tailed Hawk (long story, but the
talon punctured my hand), scarred every which way by cormorants and of
course had my share of grosbeak and cardinal bites, although they pale to
mere inconvenience compared to the effect a parrot's bite can have on your
anatomy.  

One of the worst wounds I've ever suffered from a bird came from a Great
Blue Heron...I was given a box without being told what was inside, and its
beak punctured my upper lip.

One of my "hardest to explain" injuries was a bite on the hand by a species
that is usually pretty gentle: a Turkey Vulture.  I got a tetanus shot for
that one, and it was a bit tricky to explain to the staff in the emergency
room how I showed up with a vulture bite, although once I explained what
vultures eat, they sure understood the need for the shot<G>.

BTW, I think this whole thread started with a report about the cold weather
in Northern Manitoba preventing nesting for many birds.  An article about
this was written by an old friend of mine, Bob Alison, and got wide play.
Ironically Bob, a waterfowl biologist, has been working to try to protect
the Chesapeake Bay Mute Swans.

But there is another irony.  In the paper where I saw his article (The
Toronto Star) there was a section for comments on line, and some folks used
the story to ridicule concerns about global warming (and to attack Mr. Al
Gore for trying to alert people to the cause).  

This is the sort of "cherry-picking" of data to support a bias that bothers
me and which I honestly try to avoid.  One thing that was ignored by these
people, for example, was that the temperature in part of India has reached
49 degrees...that's 120.2 degrees Fahrenheit.  I suspect the birds aren't
breeding there, either, but because it is too hot...indeed, too hot for many
to survive at all...and that includes the more than two dozen people who
have died form the heat. I doubt that they are gauging against concerns
about climate warming, eh?

My theory about the Mute Swans is that they are a convenient scapegoat for a
whole suite of problems that have been identified (without mention of swans,
BTW) in reports on the degradation of Cheseapeake Bay.  If, as I have said,
the introduction of breeding Trumpeter Swans was not in the works, I think
the argument against the Mutes would at least not be hypocritical, but I can
foresee a few decades hence that instead of a few hundred Mute Swans (in a
vast area) it will be a similar number of Trumpeters that will be "over"
populated, since they tend not to migrate when introduced.  Neither will
"wipe out" aquatic vegetation, since they would die-off long before that
happens.

When I visit my own local waterfront, I see parents with small children
feeding the Mutes, the Trumpeters (they tend to hang around and beg just
like Mutes), the Canada Geese, Mallards, Rock Pigeons and so on, and yet to
read some of the rhetoric, you'd think they were all at deadly risk of
disease and/or injury.  Teaching a child not to disturb a protective parent
swan or goose apparently not being an option.  (And yet in countless hours
of observation I've yet to see a kid who didn't recognize the warning hiss
for what it is and back off, and I have yet to see a serious confrontation).


Barry

Barry Kent MacKay
Markham, Ontario, Canada

-----Original Message-----
From: National Birding Hotline Cooperative (Chat Line)
[mailto:BIRDCHAT@...] On Behalf Of Tim Boucher
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 12:52 PM
To: BIRDCHAT@...
Subject: [BIRDCHAT] MUTE SWANS

In Maryland, DNR has and continues to use several techniques. Egg oiling
(also used to control cormorant populations) can be difficult. It can be
hard to find nests and well, I love it when people who have never
encountered an large animal defending young start opining that the eggs
should be addled or oiled. In an editorial published in the Washington Post,
TV host Montel Williams - whose sole connection to/knowledge of the issue
was that he went to Annapolis and thus has seen the Chesapeake Bay - voiced
this opinion.

In addition, egg oiling and addling are a drain on the extremely limited
resources of Maryland DNR, diverting attention from other natural resource
activities.

Remember that swans are long-lived and have a long reproductive life, so if
you tried to maintain a population of 500, and missed even a few nests each
year, the population would actually grow, albeit more slowly than an
uncontrolled population.

As the majority report from the Mute Swan Task Force to the Maryland
Secretary of Natural Resources explains, since oiling/addling actually just
slows the growth of the population, ultimately there will be more adult
swans to kill and more nests to find and more eggs to oil/addle.

Ellen Paul
Chevy Chase MD

In closing, I would just like to say: Nutria. Zebra mussels. Northern
Snakeheads. The only difference between these species and Mute Swans is....?

BirdChat Guidelines: http://www.ksu.edu/audubon/chatguidelines.html
Archives: http://listserv.arizona.edu/archives/birdchat.html

BirdChat Guidelines: http://www.ksu.edu/audubon/chatguidelines.html
Archives: http://listserv.arizona.edu/archives/birdchat.html