Mute swans, an invasive European/Asian species introduced here in the late 1800s, are a problem. A BIG problem.
Five were released in Maryland in 1962. A few years ago, we had 4,000 of the nasty critters eating grasses and scaring the feathers off native birds.
Here’s an idea: How about an open hunting season, year-round, no daily limit, no possession limit, no limit on shell numbers in shotguns? Another way to put it would be unprotected status that allows you to shoot them any way, anywhere, any time.
With my plan, you must have a hunting license and subscribe to all other game and safety laws, but anything else goes with mute swans. Let’s kill ?em all.
The end result would reduce (elimination is too much to hope for) a damaging foreign species that is destroying grasses critical to crabs, juvenile fish, water clarity and bay restoration. Mute swans also scare or kill native least terns, black skimmers, mallard ducklings and Canada goose goslings. They displace native Forster’s and common terns. A mute swan hunting season ? or lack of protection ? would be a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.
They are endemic along the coast, so a Maryland program would not do much good without a similar coast-wide or country-wide plan. But with Maryland taking the lead with this enlightened philosophy to rid the Free State of free-loading nuisances, perhaps other states would enthusiastically join us.
Just think of all the resulting good. More hunting license sales. More DNR funding. Reduced DNR monies spent to rid us of these pests. Hunters having a ball. Mute swan guide services. Special mute swan loads and guns developed, just as we have goose loads, long-barrel waterfowl guns and camouflaged turkey long arms. Marsh grass camouflage clothing would be the next big haberdashery item. The dollars would flow and bay grasses would flourish.
It should not put a twist in the knickers of the Department of Natural Resources.
“The Chesapeake Bay Program has taken the position that the expansion of the mute swan population will be harmful to bay grasses and could cause substantial problems for Chesapeake Bay grasses,” says Mike Naylor, DNR director of SAV restoration and education. Naylor has volunteers planting bay grasses that the mute swans are uprooting.
In a printed 2003 message referring to bay health and mute swans, former DNR secretary Ron Franks wrote, “For the grasses to thrive, the swans must go.” And Natural Resources Police can handle it, according to NRP Sgt. Ken Turner.
“If and when the law or regulation comes down, we will enforce it,” Turner said of the mute swan wide-open hunting possibilities.
So this would be a win-win for hunters, the DNR, conservation funding, the Chesapeake Bay, underwater grasses, native birds, guide services, hunting shops and freezer services while boosting the economy.
Besides, according to one obviously unnamed source, mute swan tastes like goose. Less grease and healthier, but still tastes like goose.
Next column: More on mute swans, arguments against killing them, thoughts by PETA and the Humane Society, and final pro/con thoughts.
You can reach C. Boyd Pfeiffer at [email protected].
