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ODNR Removes Newbury Mute Swans
Ohio Ag Connection - 05/06/2021

The mute swans so many travelers have enjoyed watching swim and nest on the swamp at the corner of Auburn and Pekin roads in Newbury Township are gone.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources shot the pair of nesting swans to keep the population of the invasive species down, said Laura Brown, ODNR wildlife research technician.

"It's not something we enjoy doing. We just do it because we know we have to manage the species," she said in a phone interview with the Geauga County Maple Leaf..

The mute swans appeared on the swamp a few years ago and last year, raised two cygnets. Residents who often enjoyed watching them, like Diane VerBerkmoes-McCann, posted about their demise on Facebook with sadness and disappointment.

"I was there just the other day, watching daddy swan make his rounds," she wrote. "The marsh is empty (now), albeit a few ducks and redwing blackbirds. The nest sits empty. Hopefully eggs were taken care of."

Brown said they were aware of the pair when they first settled in Newbury Township and had planned to remove them, but COVID-19 intervened, so the operation was put on hold.

Although many consider the mute swans beautiful, they are a threat to the trumpeter swans native to Ohio, Brown said.

Mute swans were brought into the U.S. as ornamental waterfowl for private ponds and lakes, but the owners didn't control them, so their population grew and spread across Ohio and other states, Brown said.

They are very competitive and, since their nesting season is a couple of weeks earlier than that of trumpeter swans, they will take over an area and drive the trumpeters out, she said.

"When the trumpeter swans come in, the mute swans get very territorial and can fight to the death," she said.

According to the ODNR website, a male mute swan can weigh 26 pounds and stand 5 feet tall. They will chase invaders -- other animals or humans -- and beat them with their wings, sometimes causing death or serious injury.

ODNR recommends clipping the wings of domesticated mute swans so they can't fly and keeping only one or two of the same sex so they can't reproduce.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency website says mute swans pull up marsh vegetation that grow underwater and ruin the water quality for other wildlife.

"They are very destructive," said Jeremy Marx, who owns the marsh on Auburn Road.

One of last year's signets died in the winter and the other didn't return this year, he said.

Marx was not aware of the impact they could have on his property until ODNR representatives showed up at his house.

"They asked if they could remove them," Marx recalled to the Maple Leaf newspaper. "They do it all over Ohio. If this was a park, they would have done it a long time ago."


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