Mute swan: Beautiful, dangerous, controversial

On a late June afternoon, two adult mute swans with four young huddling close by floated on a wetland near McHenry Dam in McHenry County. The same day another pair of mute swans with young paraded at the edge of a large wetland at the Lakewood Forest Preserve in Lake County.

It's easy to fall in love with these graceful huge, white creatures that seem to remind you of a child's fairy tale, perhaps, or some old movie (whose name you've forgotten) where a couple stands at a park with water and swans in the background.

But these birds – mute swans – are not native to Illinois, nor are they necessarily nice during breeding season. In fact, the mute swan in the Midwest has been a source of controversy for decades with some biologists thinking their populations should be controlled, while some animal lovers say the swans have just as much a right to be here as humans do.

Mute swans, in fact, were introduced to North America from the Old World, namely Europe, where they are native. That was back in the late 1800s. For some reason, these birds have favored localized areas around the Great Lakes and in both Lake and McHenry counties, among other areas in northern Illinois.

Mute swans are among three species of swans we can see here in northern Illinois. The other two are native. Tundra swans migrate through Illinios every year in autumn and spring. The trumpeter swan, once a fairly common breeder in the state, now only breeds in a few places, but it's beginning to increase in southern Wisconsin and may soon become more common in Illinois.
Each look remarkably alike, but upon close inspection, you'll notice the mute swan has a black-tipped orange bill with a raised black knob, while the trumpeter and tundra swans have all-dark bills. The tundra swan also has a yellow spot by its eye, and that requires some good binoculars at a close distance.

You'll almost never see a tundra swan or trumpeter swan in July in northern Illinois. But, you'll see plenty of mute swans in wetlands and on lakes caring for and defending their young this time of the year.
That's when they can get dangerous. In fact, in April 2012 a mute swan was blamed for knocking a man out of his kayak and into a Chicago pond where he drowned. No one knows for sure what happened. Was the swan protecting its territory? Was the man able to swim? Some say he was not wearing a life jacket.

It was such a sad, unfortunate accident, but I am not convinced that mute swans are intentional killers of humans.

However, there is troubling evidence that the mute swan is negatively affecting native wetlands and the native animals that need these wetlands for survival.

Scientific articles, for example, one published in Oct. 12, report data saying mute swans are degrading the vegetation in the Illinois wetlands in which they live. Ornithologist Michael P. Ward of the University of Illinois at Champaign also adds that mute swans displace native birds such as ducks and geese by scaring them away from the wetlands.

The Michiagn Department of Natural Resources considers mute swans a threat to humans, native wildlife and wetland habitats. That state's DNR is working to reduce statewide mute span population growth to zero by 2016 and to have fewer than 2,000 mute swans in the state by 2030. The reduction involves humane killing of the swans.
Illinois' problem with mute swans is not as bad as that of Michigan and nothing is done right now to reduce the population. However that time may come, Ward says, and he thinks that might be a prudent choice.

Sorting through the problems of native and non-native birds can be complicated. For example, should we protect the ring-necked pheasant, which is hunted in Illinois, even though it is native to Asia, not North America? Many more examples like this one exist.

My hope is that each case gets decided based on sound science and humane methods. In the meantime, I will enjoy observing the stately mute swans aty McHenry Dam as they hide in the wetland vegetation with their young close by. For me, this view of nature can lend peace to an otherwise stressful day.