The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - An Ontario Swan Song

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Mute Swans are considered invasive, but after generations in Ontario, they have become naturalized. Learn the basics and beauty of Ontario's Mute Swan population, how its being controlled and why its important for them to live their natural lives in wetlands and parks. With contributers: Kelly Duffin, founder of the Mute Swan Society; Dana Stratton, volunteer with the Mute Swan Society. Quin Malott, Parks, Forestry and Cemetery Manager, City of Stratford; and photographer Will Bailey.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Mute swans are iconic species and they are really beloved by people and have been for centuries. They're the subjects of myth and art. They're majestic. They're the largest bird. They have a grace on the water. The Mute Swan Society is really a community of volunteers who care about mute swans and want to advocate for their right to exist in our wetlands. They are large white birds, water birds. They have orange beaks. That's really their adult form. When they hatch as cygnets, the babies are called cygnets, they're little fluffy gray balls. And as they grow up and become juveniles,

they still have some gray or brown feathers. They're just juvenile mute swans. Contrary to their name, they are not mute. So they do honk, they do kind of bark, they have calls to each other, and they can even sometimes purr. It's quite amazing. Mute swans get to 22 to 26 pounds. The females are lighter than the males. They have a six or seven foot wingspan, and in the wild their average life expectancy is about 11 years. They eat what's called sub aquatic

vegetation or a short form SAV and that so that will be reeds that will be other underwater plants and they access them by what's called dabbling or upending so they can go down in the water and feed at a deeper rate than other animals, for instance. That's their diet. Humans brought mute swans to North America from Europe and Eurasia. And they were brought originally for really ornamental or decorative purposes. So they were kept on large estates or ponds because they're beautiful birds. And there were very few of them. In addition partly because of their association with the monarchy in the UK different

monarchs including the late Queen Elizabeth gifted a number of mute swans to Canada during her lifetime and then over time some of those swans escaped became feral, and they have now nested in the wild in Ontario for 66 years or 18 generations. So they're considered now a naturalized species. We're here looking at one nesting swan, and she probably won't even stand up. Normally, when she's incubating, she would stand up to rotate her eggs so that they heat and develop evenly, but she won't in the rain because she doesn't want them to get wet. And you'll see she's even drinking some

water off her feathers because when she's incubating, she'll rarely leave the nest, even to eat or drink. So this is a little bit of respite and she can have a drink. And then behind her on the other side is the cob, the male, the father. And his job right now is to protect her and the nest. And she has two eggs. So he'll be patrolling the territory to make sure no other swans come in and compete with them. I would estimate that in Ontario now we probably have six to eight thousand mute swans. The last and most robust count of them happened in 2017 when 4,103 were counted in the Lower Great Lakes and that's important because they really

don't have much range or distribution in the northern parts of Ontario. They do tend to be urban and and Lower Great Lakes wetlands birds. They are increasing in certain areas of Ontario. I think about Prince Edward County and Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River, but they've actually been declining inland and in the greater Toronto-Hamilton area declining our stable population. Mute swan management, which sounds pretty benign, actually involves the killing of the mute swan management, which sounds pretty benign, actually involves the killing of the mut swan eggs, destruction of their nests, and on federal and private property can also involve killing adult and juvenile mut swans.

So as to the eggs and nests, the eggs can be destroyed in a number of ways. One, they could be coated in oil and that oil prevents oxygen going through the shell so the cygnets can't develop without that oxygen and they die. The eggs could be punctured or the eggs could be what's called addled, which is shaking them, which also prevents the cygnets developing. The reason they do that is once they've destroyed the eggs, they put it back in the nest, they put them back in the nest nest and the mother swan, the female swans are called pens, will continue to incubate them thinking that they will hatch and that prevents her from re-nesting. In time the conservation authorities or municipalities or

wildlife agencies will come and take the eggs and destroy the nest but that's how eggs and nests are destroyed to prevent them from increasing in population. The sad thing is they do have two eggs but they've already been oiled so she doesn't know she's sitting on dead eggs. There are a number of conceptions about mute swans that have led to management efforts, these mute swan management efforts in Canada and in fact across the Atlantic Flyway. It's said that they could out-compete native and preferred or endangered and threatened water birds,

perhaps by overgrazing or chasing them out of territory. chasing them out of territory and there's also claims that they can be aggressive whether that's towards humans or other water birds but those are really exaggerations and the evidence does not support those claims. That being said management has been in place for about 20 years. Trumpeter swans are considered native and they are native to parts of Ontario. They're actually not a native nesting species as far south as they're now being encouraged to nest which would include places like Burlington and Toronto and those sorts of urban environments. They've been reintroduced because they were nearly extirpated, which means local extinction, a hundred-ish years ago, late 1800s, early 1900s, due to overhunting, largely for their feathers. So we humans hunted them to nearly extinction in Ontario.

And a gentleman named Harry Lumsden in the 1980s onwards led a program to reintroduce them. And it's been exciting to see that recovery. And we love all swans, so we celebrate that reintroduction and their success. They've been a self-sustaining species since 2008. But we note that if they have the same diet, largely the same attributes and behaviors, But we note that if they have the same diet, largely the same attributes and behaviors, how is it that we're very, very pleased to have trumpeters growing at the rate that they are, which is now double or triple the rate of mute swan increases over the last 20 years.

And yet we portray the same behaviors in mute swans as destructive to the environment. So we really see trumpeters as the example of mutes not being these ecosystem destroyers that they're sometimes claimed to be. Because if that were the case, we wouldn't want so many trumpeters to thrive, and we do. Hey, dad swan. My name is Dana Stratton, and I'm a volunteer for the Mute Swan Society. I got involved with the Mute Swan Society actually after I moved down close to the lake. I would go for walks and see the beautiful swans down in the lake. I've never been so close to them. I watched the swans have six cygnets and I watch them grow and fast forward a year I started being interested in the swans and doing a little bit of research on them and I saw on social media a post about the eggs being oiled I was absolutely

appalled by that and so I started to research a little bit more about the mute swans. Volunteering entails checking on the nests, checking on the swans in the area to make sure that there are no injuries. If somebody calls in and is concerned about a swan, I will go down to the zone to check it out I will go down to the zone to check it out before we call in for help if that's necessary. I've also worked with Toronto Wildlife to rescue a swan to make sure the swan was okay, help them actually take the swan out of the water, which was exciting. And they were able to take her back to their facility to make sure she was good and then was able to help them release the swan back. Canada lists the mute swan as an introduced and invasive species.

They're protected under Canada's Migratory Birds Convention Act. However, the federal government manages their population in cooperation with regional wildlife organizations. TVO reached out to the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. This is their statement. The mute swan was introduced to North American parks and zoos by European settlers in the 1870s. These swans then escaped and began inhabiting natural areas. Mute swans are harmful to wetlands because they out-compete native birds for food and nesting areas, placing a significant strain on the small number of local wetlands that may already be experiencing other urban stressors. A management program has been established to lessen the mute swan's impact on wetlands

by controlling their population growth. This is done carefully and humanely by treating young eggs with mineral oil, which prevents the eggs from developing and prevents the mother from re-nesting. Once the re-nesting season has passed, nests are removed so that the adult birds leave the area. Toronto and Region Conservation Authority operates this program with support from the Canadian Wildlife Service. I'm Quinn Mallott, Parks, Forestry and Cemetery Manager for the City of Stratford. Part of our portfolio is the swan herd in Stratford. We take care of them through the winter.

We have a winter quarters where we bring them in, where we have a sheltered area and a pond where we kept them fed. We keep an eye on them on the river in the summer when we let them out. Some of the questions we get about mute swans are how many we have, where are they sometimes, because they know they get in behind these coves. They go over to the golf course at night. They get into the bush.

So sometimes you can drive around the river and you won't even see the swans, right? But a lot of times they're in the main river, and they're very visible for visitors and locals alike. We try to discourage people from feeding the swans. It attracts other fowl like the geese and the ducks to herd around where the feed is so we're trying to avoid that contact. We had the avian flu a few years ago and we did actually lose some swans to that so we try to avoid that population mixing with the with the swans. I mean they do anyway but if you're feeding them it's it's a very tight quarters. So the City of Stratford

owns the swans but we have and they're permitted swans so we have we get a permit from Environment Canada and Climate Change to have a permit to to own swans and then it's governed by the Ontario Wildlife. And then we manage the swans through them. They have to know how many we have, how many we sell, how many we buy, where they're located. If we have to move a swan to another location, we have to do an amendment to our permit to let them know. So they have an idea where all our swans are, how many we have, when we're buying, when we're selling, and we can only sell to other permit holders. So we have two pairs nesting. Both are on outlying waters. We've had swans on the river since 1938.

It was an entrepreneur from a Kellogg's plant in Battle Creek, Michigan. He was an executive, and he had come to Stratford and enjoyed the setting and saw the setting and thought it'd be great to have a mated pair of swans on the river. And he donated them. Under the permit, we have to pinion our cygnets at 7 to 10 days old. So once we put them on the river, they can fly, but they can't get migratory flight.

They can't fly. They wouldn't fly to Kentucky and back. They can fly around the river a little fly to Kentucky and back. They can, you know, fly around the river a little bit and escape predators a little bit, but they're not a migratory flighting bird. When a cygnet's about seven to ten days old, you just have to clip a piece of the wing just to, so the growth would be offset to the other wing. The first Sunday in April every year, we release the swans onto the river. We have to get them down to the river anyway,

so we walk them down. We try to make it a little bit of a community event. It's actually gotten larger than we've expected. It's just to get the community out to watch the swans walk onto the river, and it's kind of the official start of spring here in Stratford. I walk onto the river and it's kind of the official start of spring here in Stratford.

The mute swan isn't indigenous to Canada. That's why they're managed. That's why they're a managed bird, because they're not an indigenous species. So to be an invasive species, I think it would have to be overpopulation. We're not having that problem here, and that's why they're managed. I understand in some parts of Canada there is an issue with overpopulation of the mute swan, but I don't think we're finding that here in Ontario.

I moved here in 2008. I actually vacationed here, and I saw what Stratford was. The beauty, it's a postcard town. Like if you're a photographer you see potential postcards everywhere. I've been taking photos since 2008. I think they're majestic and they're typically, they're the largest bird on the river and so they're going to get that kind of attention. Certainly one of the draws that brings people from outlying areas. Neighbouring towns, they'll come for the parks and they hope to see the swans, maybe they'll picnic, and then we'll get tourists from the UK and further for the theatre and then of course

they'll see the swans and they'll appreciate them. There's a lot of talent in Stratford for video, for photography and many times I'll post on social media on my own timelines and then I'll post in Stratford groups as well and they're well received because people love seeing the swans. Understanding their behavior gets you the good shots, really. When they preen and you know that eventually they're gonna stretch their wings out and then that's an opportunity for example. Preening itself is a great example and so there's a lot of great shots to be had if you know their behaviors, because then you can anticipate. It was along this bank in 2013, and there was a mated pair called Charles and Margaret, or Charlie and Maggie. And I was walking along, and I had a lens similar to like I have now,

walking along and I had a lens similar to like I have now and there was two cygnets that were on mom's back on the ground and they looked up at mom and mom mom you know their long neck and so the beak was like this and the cygnets were looking up and I just happened to snap off two very quick shots and I love them and they've been well received. It's actually a very tender moment of Cygnets looking up at mom. I want people to understand how friendly they are and how they have such unique personalities and how family-oriented they are. If you come to know them, they're really amazingly friendly birds.

They will recognize you, they do come to trust you, and come and show you their cygnets, which is such an honour. The Agenda with Steve Paikin is made possible Thank you.