Posted on 01/31/2014 10:19:17 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
IN Britain, wild swans may be prized for their beauty and protected by the Queen, but the US state of New York has declared war on them, branding them a violent menace.
Draft proposals to kill or resettle the state's 2200 wild mute swans by 2025 may be supported by some conservationists but have sparked uproar among animal rights activists.
Mute swans were brought to North America by European settlers to adorn their estates in the late 1800s but the authorities no longer consider them a beauty worthy of roaming free.
The New York state department of environmental conservation says swans attack people, destroy vegetation, pose a threat to jetliners and damage water because their feces contain e coli.
Ever since US Airways flight 1549 collided with a flock of geese in 2009 and landed on the Hudson river, the US Department of Agriculture has set about annually culling Canada geese.
Now the New York state conservation department wants to expand the offensive and eliminate free-ranging mute swans by 2025, killing them or allowing "responsible ownership" of the birds in captivity.
"Lethal control methods will include shooting of free-ranging swans and live capture and euthanasia in accordance with established guidelines for wildlife," said the draft proposal.
Nests would also be destroyed, and eggs oiled, punctured or sterilised to prevent hatching, it added.
Pressure group Goose Watch NYC, which was set up to protest against the geese culls, demanded the plan be scrapped.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.com.au ...
First the Governor of NY wants to get rid of all conservatives and Christians. Now they are targeting the swans! Simply outrageous.
Swans mate for life. If one dies, the other just pines away. I guess it goes along with Cuomo’s war on traditional marriage!
They’re pests around here.
I wish we could hunt them but they’re too similar to the native trumpeter swans to tell them apart at distance.
Mute swans are hyper-aggressive, will drive off other water fowl and attack anyone in their territory, including people. They will also empty a pond of fish, since they are voracious eaters.
A pair are very beautiful. More than a pair are a menace.
Do they make good eatin’?
What is the highest measured elevation of an European Swan in flight?
The ones that I have seen rarely fly, and those that do stay within tens of feet above. water.
Send them back to England, where there’s a swan shortage because the ethnic Albanian asylum seekers have literally eaten them all out of the park ponds.
on that note, a limerick from St. John’s college in Oxford:
There was a young man from St John’s
Who wanted to bugger the swans
“Oh no,” said the porter,
“Please just take my daughter,
Them swans is reserved for the Dons”
Well, I’d take a pair. I’d even build a pond for them. The last time I checked (about 15 years ago) a pair cost more than $1000.
Are we allowed to call them mute? Maybe speaking challenged? And they are all special!
Teach them ASL (American Swan Language)
Mute Swans cannot speak for themselves.
Is there a behavioral difference between the Trumpeter and the Mute swans? I thought all those big geese were prone to aggressive behavior and being overly territorial. If you rush them with equal force the ganders usually back off.
Roasted swan used to be the food of English royalty, until the colonists brought the American turkey back to the realm.
Seems the dryness we associate with turkey was a boon to the English, since swan is the oiliest of all waterfowl meat.
Mute swans are anything but, since they can “blare like a bugle or bark like a dog”, and the leading edge of their wings is lined with knoblike `knucklebone’ that can break an arm or crumple a galvanized pail.
The mute swans of the Thames are well known for their ferocity.
Can't they just use the traditional method of killing wild birds: building a wind turbine?
Don’t let children near them, and be careful yourself.
They’re nasty buggers, and will attack people within reach.
There is a solitary Mute Swan on the nearby TVA lake. It has lived there for years and bird watchers go to observe it and check it off their life list.
Although there are nice homes on one shore, the bird is wild and adapted to the habitat.
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