Mute swans & trumpeter swans: bird artist Barry Kent Mackay testifies

“The trumpeter swans where I live,  in southern Ontario,  associate with non-native mute swans”

Barry Kent Mackay,  a friend for 47 years,  a longtime colleague on the animals and nature news beat,  and among the senior animal advocates in Canada,  also happens to be a distinguished ornithological painter with an especially strong fondness for waterfowl.

ANIMALS 24-7 took the opportunity to invite his thoughtful input on the mute swan vs. trumpeter swan issues raised by California starts open season on mute swans, who will be “sitting ducks” and A Tale of Two Species, the Mute Swan & the Trumpeter Swan,  by Arlene Steinberg.

More about Barry Kent Mackay,   never known to blow his own horn,  follows his guest column,  borrowed from Birdnote.org.

Trumpeter swans & mute swans

by Barry Kent Mackay

The bird books I cherished in my youth always described trumpeter swans as either endangered and on the road to extinction,  or a success story,  on its way back from extinction.

Over 17,600 swan skins were accounted for in the fur and feather trade by the Hudson’s Bay Company between 1853 and 1877.  Most of those would have been from trumpeter swans.

In 1933 the estimate of fewer than 70 trumpeter swans in the wild was turned around by the discovery of a population of several thousand up in Alaska.

Trumpeter swans are relatively easy to maintain and breed in captivity,  and there is now a healthy wild population.

Trumpeter swans are quite similar to tundra swans,  who breed mostly above the tree line in tundra,  less attractive to the 18th and 19th century fur and feather industry.  Thus tundra swans were never endangered.

Captive breeding brought trumpeter swans east

Traditionally trumpeter swans bred in forested and mountainous habitats,  mostly in midwestern and western regions,  but captive breeding and release programs brought them into the east,  and they adapted well to urban and suburban habitats.

How far east trumpeter swans originally bred is a matter of conjecture and debate,  with some suggesting they may have reached the east coast prior to European colonization.

Certainly their traditional migratory route took many in a southeastern direction to the Mid-Atlantic U.S. region,  but that population was entirely eliminated by hunting and the feather trade.

The trumpeter swans where I live,  in southern Ontario,  derive entirely from released birds,  and are,  unlike their wild ancestors,  essentially non-migratory.  They are often quite tame.  They associate with non-native mute swans,  whose habits and behavior are similar,  although trumpeter swans feature the loud, discordant, bugling call for which they are named,  while mute swans are indeed mute,  but for hissing.

Both species are highly defensive of nest and nesting territory.

Like mutes,  trumpeter swans pull up submerged and emergent aquatic vegetation,  including leaves,  stems,  roots and tubers. They may graze on grass or grain in fields and in summer take some animal food such as aquatic insects,  small crustaceans,  even minnows.  Most of their feeding is done in the water.

Mute swans

Included with other swans,  ducks and geese in the avian family,  Anatidae,  mute swans are native to the temperate and northern latitudes of much of Eurasia,  but because of their lovely appearance they have long been kept captive,  or semi-captive,  and not surprisingly have established naturalized populations in various parts of North America,  Australasia,  and southern Africa.

It is not unusual for mute swans to become conditioned to the presence of people to the point of tameness,  although they can also be quite wild and wary.

As much as they are loved by many,  myself included,  in North America mute swans are disliked,  at times to the point of extreme animosity,  by many conservationists,  birders and environmentalists.

Some wildlife management agencies even resort to lethal culling, slaughtering large numbers, in some cases trying to eradicate mute swans.

A useful bird

The accusations leveled against mute swans are that they pull up vegetation and chase native waterfowl,  such as Canada geese.

But then I hear that there are too many Canada geese,  and in my experience nesting mute swans are not necessarily aggressive against ducks.

Mute swans co-exist with the same,  or similar,  species of plants and animals in their native lands, so although I have asked,  I have never been told by their detractors what makes the same,  or similar,  species so vulnerable to mute swans on this side of the Atlantic,  but not on the other side?

In fact,  human activity has so “Europeanized” much of North America that they are right at home in habitat extremely similar to that inhabited in their native lands.

Since marshes tend to fill in,  as emergent vegetation builds up a foundation for grasses and ultimately trees,  and yet are themselves necessary for many wildlife species and often endangered habitat,  why is it wrong for mute swans,  like muskrats who make channels through emergent vegetation used by other wildlife,  and beavers,  who create ponds also used by other wildlife species, to help maintain some open water?

Contradictory policies

It’s not that I approve of introducing exotic species into environments they would not otherwise inhabit.  But given the number of Eurasian waterfowl and gull species that are increasingly establishing themselves in North America,  I would not assume that mute swans could not colonize the western hemisphere without being physically brought here.

I would prefer legal bans on exotic imports in the first place,  not demonizing the species involved for just existing.

But most strange to me is that the same agencies are often happy with putting trumpeter swans into the environment,  which do the same things as the mutes,  plus are noisier!

They have extensive introduction programs in play to return trumpeter swans to regions,  as nesting species,  where they possibly never even previously nested,  and to habitat far more like Europe than the virgin forests that existed when trumpeter swans may have nested in the east,  if they ever did.

I have never heard a sensible answer as to why that makes sense.

In my area both trumpeter swans and mute swans nest

In my area both trumpeter swans and mute swans nest,  neither being very migratory,  although in common with many bird species they may form large post-nesting flocks.

Fossils of birds that seem ancestral to mute swans that were found in the western U.S. date from about ten thousand years ago.  Like ancestral horses and many other large animal species,  these birds appear to have become extinct in North America around the time humans arrived.

Given that DNA analysis suggests that the swan species most closely related to mute swans is the black-necked swan,  native only to South America,  it seems at least possible that mute swans originated in the western hemisphere,  moving up from South America,  through North America and across into Eurasia,  before becoming extinct in North America,  along with so many other large animals,  near the end of the last ice age.

Animal populations are forever expanding and contracting their ranges and while humans were doubtless the agent by which mutes arrived “back” into our hemisphere,  I don’t see why that makes them undesirable.

More about Barry Kent Mackay,  from Birdnote.org:

“As a naturalist, Barry Kent MacKay has participated in numerous activities related to bird and nature study and conservation.  As a fast-sketch artist, he promoted interest in wildlife during 16 years of appearances on a nationally syndicated children’s television show.

“He did field work for the Royal Ontario Museum and for the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology in Costa Rica;  illustrated the reptiles and amphibians of the Toronto Zoo;  illustrated a few scientific papers in various technical journals;  and participated in a search for the critically endangered,  possibly extinct,  Eskimo Curlew in historic migration sites in northern Newfoundland and Labrador.

“As a writer,  he is well known and respected for his Nature Trail column,  published weekly in the Toronto Star for 25 years.  His writings and articles have also appeared in numerous magazines such as Birds of the Wild,  Defenders,  BirdWatchers’ Digest,  Seasons,  Mainstream,  and Animal Issues,  and as features in the Toronto Star and various other publications,  large and small.

“In 1968,  the Book Society published Eighty More Land Birds to Know,  written and illustrated by a youthful Barry Kent MacKay.  ‘I try to forget that one,’  laughs Barry,  but he is pleased to admit that one of his proudest moments came when his mentor,  Roger Tory Peterson,  chose one of his oil paintings of ruddy turnstones as an illustration for the Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio,  Audubon’s Birds of America,  by Roger Tory Peterson and Virginia Marie Peterson,  Abbeville Press,  1981.”

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