With helpful nudges from Bob Grover, Bob Paxton and Joe Jannsen I found some more information to answer my own question about the management strategies for Mute Swan outside of New York State. Links to some examples are provided below and clearly authorities in many states have similar concerns. Like the DEC report, these documents make for interesting reading.
Maryland http://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Hunt_Trap/pdfs/2011_MUSW_MDMagtPlan.pdf Virginia http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/waterfowl/mute-swan/management-plan/virginia-mute-swan-management-plan.pdf Ohio http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/wild_resourcessubhomepage/dealing_with_wildlifeplaceholder/terrestrialnuisancewildlife/MuteSwanActionPlan/tabid/22967/Default.aspx Michigan https://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/mute_swan_issue_paper_June_30_2003_364890_7.pdf?20140117090728 Ontario http://www.bsc-eoc.org/download/Mute%20Swan.pdf Clearly there is a much wider effort than I was aware of with considerable forward momentum. The reductions obtained over a ten-year period in Maryland are impressive and my initial skepticism seems unfounded. As summarized in the NYS DEC report (well worth reading), amateur observers across the state have played a important role in documenting the steady rise in both the breeding and wintering population of Mute Swan over the years. The authors Bryan Swift, Kevin Clarke, Robin Holevinski and Elizabeth Cooper have made good use of data from the two Atlas projects, the January waterfowl counts coordinated by NYSOA and the National Aububon Christmas Bird Counts. Figure 1 comparing Breeding Atlas data and Figure 4 showing the cumulative CBC results are both particularly striking. Going forward, one can imagine that high-resolution tools like eBird will be valuable in tracking changes as these management policies are implemented. If nothing else, this is one reason to carefully count Mute Swans each time you see them (rather than entering an X). It will be interesting to follow this from year to year. Angus Wilson New York City, NY -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
