The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has dropped its plan to allow states in the Atlantic Flyway to kill approximately 67% of the estimated 12,490 mute swans living in that region in the next year.
This latest move in the battle over mute swan "management" came in response to a suit filed by The Fund for Animals, along with four private citizens, against the USFWS and Interior Secretary Gale Norton. The suit alleged that the mute swan killing plan was in violation of both the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
On September 9, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a preliminary injunction forbidding the killing of mute swans under the USFWS's plan until a federal court in the District of Columbia ruled on the lawsuit. The USFWS headed off the ruling by withdrawing the killing permits.
The USFWS was already facing a tough battle in the court of public opinion, where many citizens—alerted by animal protection, environmental, and conservation groups—had registered strong disapproval of the lethal managment plan.
The swans in this East Coast region—a swath that includes Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, the Carolinas, and Georgia—are accused of eating too much of the area's sea grasses, especially in the Chesapeake Bay.
Four Possible Strategies
The USFWS's proposal, in the form of a draft Environmental Assessment (EA), analyzed four alternative mute swan management strategies (download the draft EA via the link below):
- "No action"—there would be no mute swan management, lethal or non-lethal.
- "Integrated management," the proposed alternative—adult mute swans would be killed to reduce the regional population by about 67%, but non-lethal population and behavior control methods would also be allowed.
- "Egg addling"—swan reproduction would be controlled by addling (shaking) or oiling eggs to prevent hatching, along with an array of other non-lethal population and behavioral control methods.
- "Non-lethal control"—non-lethal control methods, but not egg addling or oiling, would be allowed.
Further Information
The USFWS claimed the primary justification for its proposal is the impact of mute swans on wetland habitats, such as the Chesapeake Bay. Mute swans are not native to North America and, compared to most native waterfowl, their foraging habits can have a more substantial impact on submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the bay. SAV is an important food and habitat feature for other wildlife, including fish, birds, crustaceans, and aquatic invertebrates.
However, it is widely acknowledged that the predominant cause of SAV decline in the bay is a lack of light reaching the plants, which makes it impossible for the plants to photosynthesize. This light deficiency is the result of high nutrient and sediment loads. Contributing to the nutrient levels are wastewater treatment facilities, which are overloaded because of the increasing human population near the bay, as well as agricultural practices that result in nitrogen runoff. Sediment reaching the bay can increase when human land uses result in excessive erosion.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has acknowledged that, with localized exceptions, the impact of mute swans is negligible on the bay in comparison to larger problems that reduce light penetration. But state wildlife agencies and refuges in Maryland and other states within the Atlantic Flyway are pushing for USFWS permits that will allow them to do away with mute swans, perhaps because they are the one factor that seems easiest to control. Whether it will actually be easy to reduce or eliminate mute swan populations in the Chesapeake region is questionable. But it is clear that this approach to restoring wetlands such as the Chesapeake Bay will direct limited financial resources toward the factor that is arguably of least importance.
