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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today issued a federal migratory bird permit to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources allowing the state wildlife agency to reduce the size of Maryland’s feral mute swan population by 525 birds, according to Richard O. Bennett, Ph.D., acting northeast regional director for the Service.
According to Bennett, the permit will become effective on August 27, specifically authorizing Maryland DNR to kill up to 525 mute swans in the Chesapeake Bay region. The permit will expire on December 31.
"The Service has issued the permit in support of Maryland DNR’s determination that the only prudent action state wildlife managers can take at this time is to reduce mute swan numbers," said Bennett. "While mute swans, which are an exotic species in North America, are now protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Maryland DNR has provided scientific documentation that the state’s burgeoning mute swan population is damaging important wetland habitats in the Chesapeake Bay by significantly reducing submerged aquatic vegetation critical to water quality and the survival of other fish and wildlife."
Maryland’s mute swan population currently exceeds 3,600 birds. The number of swans is increasing most dramatically in the Chesapeake Bay, where the population size increased by 1,116 percent from 1986 to 2002. If left uncontrolled, biologists predict it will continue to double every eight years, said Bennett.
The Service published on August 7, Management of Mute Swans in the Atlantic Flyway, a final environmental assessment proposing an integrated approach among state agencies, federal agencies and municipal organizations in managing the species. If the plan is fully implemented, the size of the mute swan population throughout the eastern United States would be reduced in five to 10 years from approximately14,300 to 4,700 swans, a 67 percent decrease.
Lethal take of adult birds has been shown to be the only effective method for reducing populations of long-lived birds such as the mute swan. Egg addling is a useful technique for arresting productivity and stabilizing populations. Non-lethal techniques such as harassment can be effective for dealing with nuisance problems caused by individual swans.
The Service produced the environmental assessment after the Fund for Animals and two individuals filed a lawsuit in May contending that the Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not completing an environmental review prior to issuing a permit to manage mute swans under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit when the State of Maryland agreed to relinquish an earlier permit to take mute swans issued by the Service in April 2003. The original permit authorized state wildlife managers to addle all the eggs in up to 350 mute swan nests and to take 1,500 mute swans by lethal means.
During a 15-day public comment period on the draft environmental assessment, which ended on July 16, the Service received approximately 2,600 comments from agencies, organizations and individuals. The Service’s proposal to manage mute swans through a combination of lethal and non-lethal ways was supported by 13 state wildlife agencies and 43 organizations dedicated to bird conservation, bird science, wildlife conservation and wildlife management. More than 95 percent of the individual responses originated from Internet-based action alert form letters posted by animal rights organizations.
Until recently, individual states have been solely responsible for managing mute swans. However, on December 28, 2001, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled (Hill vs. Norton) that the Service - the primary federal agency responsible for migratory bird management - could not exclude the mute swan from the list of birds protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
Before federal protection was added, various state wildlife agencies independently conducted some form of population control on mute swans. With federal protection in place, agencies or people wanting to control mute swans were required to receive a permit from the Service.
Mute swans first breed at age 3. On average, mute swans lay five or six eggs, and usually four or five cygnets survive. The life span for a wild mute swan can exceed 25 years, and with few predators, biologists expect that the population will continue to thrive.
Prized for their beauty, the birds were imported initially to the lower Hudson River Valley and Long Island in the late 1800s to adorn ponds on large estates and local parks. Swans were pinioned (had their wings clipped) to prevent flying from captive areas. The current population of free-flying birds in the United States is descended from private flocks that either escaped or were intentionally released to public areas.
Tundra swans and trumpeter swans are the only swans native to North America. Adult tundra and trumpeter swans have white feathers similar to mute swans, but both native species have mostly black bills. Native swans nest primarily in arctic habitats and reside in the eastern United States only during migration and winter. The mute swan competes with these native species for food and habitat.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System which encompasses nearly 540 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 66 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.
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