Selected Articles from our
newsletter
The C.A.S.H. Courier
ARTICLE from the Winter 2008 Issue
Clearly There’s no need to kill...
Thanks to Natalie Jarnstedt for sending us this item from
The Greenwich Time. Once again, game agencies are talking about
killing mute swans.
About 100 mute swans have been counted in Greenwich area. Some
environmental agencies consider them as much a nuisance as deer or the more
numerous Canada geese.
Swans
are protected from hunting in Connecticut, but the state DEP has the
authority to control them if it believes they threaten ecosystems. Wildlife
officials have previously proposed reducing the population, but protests
defeated the plan. Killing is being discussed again.
“Large numbers of them habitually using one place will deplete the food
supply,” said Dale May, head of wildlife division, Conn. DEP. “They can have
a significant impact. Are they having an impact on every coastline and every
inlet? Probably not.”
Kathryn Burton, founder of Save Our Swans USA, who has been a
contributor to the C.A.S.H. Courier in the past, questions whether
the swan population is out of control. Many residents have reported that
they are seeing fewer swans than before, said Burton, who believes the swans
are scapegoats for other ecosystem threats, such as coastline
overdevelopment.
Burton pledges to fight the slaughter of the mute swans. “If you can
start killing of things unjustifiably, when do you stop?” she asked.
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