Maryland mute swans lost in court.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected an argument by the Humane Society that asked to overturn a 2004 District of Columbia Circuit Court ruling that stated mute swans are not protected under the International Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
The court rejected the appeal on Friday.
The higher court ruling means about 1,500 mute swans in Maryland will be killed.
“This is a fear-based situation. The state fears any animal that might be nonnative. The idea is to kill them all as fast as they can,” said John Lovvorn, vice president of litigation for the Humane Society of the United States.
But the court again sided with several environmental groups and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The higher court ruled that the swans should not be protected because they are notnative to the United States.
The mute swan arrived from Asia in the 1960s. Since then, it has wreaked havoc, chasing blue herons out of their nests, and even contributing to the drowning of an elderly man in Indiana, said Gildo Tori, director of public policy for Ducks Unlimited, a nonprofit that advocates for waterfowl.
The Chesapeake Bay is threatened because the swans eat too much of the natural grasses that provide habitat for blue crabs and other animals, Tori said.
“It?s very clear that mute swans are an environmental liability in the Chesapeake,” said Jonathan McKnight, associate director of wildlife and heritage for the Maryland department of natural resources.
In Maryland, efforts to manage the populations have caused the birds? populations to dwindle from a peak of 4,000 in 2001, McKnight said.
The department usually shoots the swans or covers their eggs with an oil that causes their signets not to hatch, McKnight said.
“We do an incredibly safe and humane job of regulating the mute swan populations,” McKnight said.
