Adele Ferguson - State game policy for geese keeps swan solo

ON LITTLE SYLVIA Lake in Gig Harbor lives a lonely old mute swan, lonely because his companion went to that great watering hole in the sky two years ago, and efforts to replace him have been thwarted by the Darth Vader of mute swandom, the state of Washington. Hiss! Boo!

Fie on mute swans, declares the state. They have a bad habit of beating up and sometimes killing native waterfowl. They have even been known to attack and seriously harm people in their territories. Which is why in 1991, the state added them to its Deletorious Exotic Wildlife list, meaning hurtful, noxious and pernicious.

In other words, mean to the core, mostly during nesting times which shouldn’t even be observed by mute swans because they aren’t allowed to have babies. Not here anyway. Under DEW, it is unlawful to import, hold, possess, propagate, offer for sale, sell, transfer or release mute swans in the state. The only reason Prince and Princess, the mute swans on Sylvia Lake, beat the rap was because they were already doing their thing of driving off invading Canadian Geese before they made the list in 1991.

That was their mission in life. Let a flock of Canadian geese approach the lake and the swans immediately began swimming back and forth, patrolling their waters to let the invaders know that if they lit there they would get the daylights beaten out of them. Neither Prince nor Princess could fly because the other requirements that allowed them to avoid the guillotine were that their wings were pinioned, meaning their flight feathers were clipped, and they were “sexually altered” so they couldn’t reproduce.

IT WASN’T UNTIL Princess died that it was discovered that he was no she but a he like Prince, which doesn’t make his loss any easier to bear. Now Prince has no one to rap with when there are no Canadian geese to beat up, no one to grunt with–mute swans are not exactly the Pavarottis of wildfowl when it comes to breaking into song. They grunt.

The people who live on Sylvia Lake don’t care how unmusical they are. They just care that they drive off the Canadian geese which are famous every where they go for propagating like mad and producing vast amounts of poop which is no fun to step in.

So when Princess died, the Sylvia Lake people appealed to the Fish and Wildlife Dept to allow them to procure another mute swan to be Prince’s companion. Otherwise, they feared, Prince would die of loneliness and they would spend much of their time outdoors sliding around in Canadian geese poop.

Canadian geese are protected by state and federal migratory bird laws so they can poop all they want to and can’t be harmed by humans. Anti poop brigades usually deal with them by sterilizing their eggs by putting oil on them but having your own mute swan patrol keeps them from moving in in the first place.

FISH AND WILDLIFE said no to a companion for Prince. That did not deter Prince’s friends at Sylvia Lake who next appealed to their legislators and lo and behold, they got a bill drafted that would allow a maximum of two mute swans on private lakes less than 20 acres in size, the swans to be neutered and pinioned.

Why not? demanded Sen. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, seconded by Reps. Larry Seaquist, D-Gig Harbor, and Jan Angel, R-Port Orchard. They had a hearing on day one of the 2010 legislative session in the Natural Resources, Oceans and Recreation Committee. Please, begged the Sylvia Lakers. No, said Fish and Wildlife.

The committee took no action. But it isn’t over yet. Mute swans, says FW’s wildfowl expert Don Kraege, can live up to 30 years. Then Prince surely has a few years left in him and deserves companionship. Let’s hear it for Prince. Let’s do a good deed that doesn’t cost a dime.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)