THE MUTE SWAN MYSTERY SOLVED! Thank you and congratulations Sheila Long, Bradley Beach, NJ A wonderful, non-corny, shampoo and treat pack is headed your way!
About EJ62-He is part of this study in NY state! He was banded 08/04/06 on the Hudson River just south of the Rondout Creek mouth, near Kingston. Only one other person, just this spring had ever reported seeing him since he was tagged! Originally he had a radio transmitter on him which allowed the study to track him for several months.
Mute swans are a non-native, invasive species first brought to this country from Europe in the late 1800s for their aesthetic value. Initially introduced in New York's lower Hudson Valley and Long Island, mute swans were kept by breeders and as domestics on the ponds of private estates. The release of domestic swans into the wild on Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley has led to well established populations in those areas. The largest known releases occurred from 1910-1912 and consisted of approximately 500 birds.
By 1993, New York's mute swan population had increased to about 2,000. Currently, the population is believed to have increased further to about 3,000. The largest numbers of swans still occur on Long Island and in the lower Hudson Valley, but a rapidly increasing population has taken hold in the Lake Ontario region (see the map of mute swan breeding locations in New York).
Life History
Mute swan nest
Mute swans are the largest birds in New York, with an average adult weight of 20-25 pounds and a wing span of nearly 7 feet. Both sexes have a black face patch with a fleshy knob on the forehead that overlays an orange bill. These facial characteristics distinguish mute swans from other swan species in New York State. Males ("cobs") tend to have slightly larger knobs and body sizes than females ("pens"). Despite these differences, it is very difficult to tell the sexes apart. Mute swans, as indicated by their name, are not very vocal. They will, however, grunt, snort, or hiss to communicate, especially if threatened.
The diet of mute swans consists of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) found in water as deep as 4 feet. They eat a variety of plant species and consume about 4-8 pounds of vegetation daily, sometimes uprooting plants completely. Often, adult swans will uproot more plants than they actually consume. Submerged aquatic vegetation plays an important role in aquatic ecosystems by providing both food and cover to a variety of vertebrate and invertebrate species. In turn, many species (e.g., fish) rely on animals that live in SAV beds for food. Thus, loss of SAV caused by large flocks of feeding swans could have a detrimental impact on aquatic ecosystems.
Mute swans become sexually mature when they are two years old, but often will not begin breeding until they are three, four, or even five years old. Some individuals may pair and sometimes even build a nest when they are 1 year old, but will not breed.
The nesting period for mute swans begins in late March to April. Nests are large (4-5 feet across) with shallow depressions in the center. Nest sites will vary based on available habitat, but are typically in secluded areas on shore or in shallow water. In marshes, nests are often floating, constructed of cattail stems. Other nest materials include twigs, leaves, and stems of wetland plants, such as cattail and phragmites. Occasionally, nests will contain litter, such as paper, plastic wrappers, and fishing line.
Mute swans lay an average of 6 eggs but can produce as many as 11 in one clutch. The off-white to pale green eggs are laid at a rate of one per day, and hatch 35 days after the last egg is laid. The average hatch date for swans in New York is around June 1. Renesting may occur if the initial nest fails. Mute swan offspring ("cygnets") are either gray or white upon hatching. Their color at hatch is a genetic trait and not related to sex. Gray cygnets gradually turn a brownish color by their first winter, before gaining their white adult plumage. White cygnets remain white. Mute swan families typically stay close to their nesting area and separate from other broods and non-breeding swans for the first couple of months after hatching. Cygnets can fly at about 4-5 months of age and are considered "juveniles" at that time. On average, only 3 cygnets per breeding pair survive to juvenile age. Causes of death include disease, hypothermia, and predators. The most common predator of mute swan cygnets in New York is the snapping turtle.
During the nesting and brood rearing-periods mute swans are very territorial. Both males and females are aggressive toward people and other waterfowl within their nesting area. Sometimes their behavior is so aggressive that they will drive other waterfowl out of areas where the swans are nesting. Reports of swan attacks on people, especially small children and users of personal watercraft, are common. Because of this, waters occupied by breeding swans are often unusable to people during the nesting and brood-rearing periods. Aggression among swans also occurs, especially when an adult male with a nest or brood encounters another male. In these instances both males raise their wings and fluff their feathers, known as "busking" (also part of the mating ritual), and begin twirling in place; a ritual that appears more like a dance than a fight.
Current and Future Research
Concerns about the impact of mute swans on people, wildlife, and ecosystems have prompted the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) to initiate research on this species. In May 2004, researchers began collecting nesting and productivity data across New York State. These data provide information on nesting distribution, clutch sizes (eggs per nest), hatching rates, cygnet survival, and proportions of breeding birds within the populations.
Ground, boat, and aerial surveys are also being done across the state to monitor current population numbers, seasonal distribution and movement patterns, and habitat use. These data, along with productivity estimates, help to determine and predict population trends.
As part of this research, some swans have been tagged with identification markers, including aluminum leg bands, plastic neck collars, and even satellite-tracked radio-transmitters. Past research on swans and other waterfowl indicate that these methods of marking swans have little to no impact on the well-being of marked individuals.
Future research plans include:
continuing studies of productivity, survival, and movements.
determining the impact of mute swan feeding on submerged aquatic vegetation.
documenting mute swan aggression toward people and other waterfowl.
determining the extent to which feeding by people contributes to mute swan population growth and survival.
Reporting Collared Mute Swans
Please provide the following information when reporting a collared mute swan. Include your name, address, phone number, e-mail; date and time of sighting; location of the sighting (including county, town, name of water body, and nearest road intersection); collar identification code; and an estimate of the total number of mute swans observed in that location. Your help in reporting mute swan sightings is an important part of the data collection process and is greatly appreciated.
Reporting Problems Related to Mute Swans
If you have concerns regarding mute swans impacting vegetation, wildlife, or human activities on your property, please contact the
DEC wildlife officein your region. They can provide information or assistance to alleviate the problem. Remember, mute swans are protected by the New York State Environmental Conservation Law. Therefore, swans, as well as their nests and eggs, may not be handled or harmed without authorization from DEC.
More about Mute Swan :
Mute Swan Surveys - DEC conducts a Mid-summer Mute Swan Survey to assess the population status of this non-native species and to help evaluate the need for and success of management efforts.
Recognizing cruelty is simple, right? Not quite, say ASPCA experts. Obvious behaviors such as aggression, timidity and fear don’t always tell the whole story. Animals may appear to be timid or frightened for many reasons other than abuse.
“It’s almost impossible to make conclusions based on a pet’s behavior alone,” says the ASPCA Animal Behavior Center’s Kristen Collins, CPDT. “The best way to tell whether a pet is being or has been abused is to examine him and his surrounding environment.”
Check out our list of signs that may alert you an animal needs help:
Physical Signs
Collar so tight that it has caused a neck wound or has become embedded in the pet’s neck
Open wounds, signs of multiple healed wounds or an ongoing injury or illness that isn’t being treated
Untreated skin conditions that have caused loss of hair, scaly skin, bumps or rashes
Extreme thinness or emaciation—bones may be visible
Fur infested with fleas, ticks or other parasites
Patches of bumpy, scaly skin rashes
Signs of inadequate grooming, such as extreme matting of fur, overgrown nails and dirty coat
Weakness, limping or the inability to stand or walk normally
Heavy discharge from eyes or nose
An owner striking or otherwise physically abusing an animal
Visible signs of confusion or extreme drowsiness
Environmental Signs
Pets are tied up alone outside for long periods of time without adequate food or water, or with food or water that is unsanitary
Pets are kept outside in inclement weather without access to adequate shelter
Pets are kept in an area littered with feces, garbage, broken glass or other objects that could harm them
Animals are housed in kennels or cages (very often crowded in with other animals) that are too small to allow them to stand, turn around and make normal movements possibly with too many other animals
“Reporting suspected animal cruelty ensures that animals in jeopardy receive prompt and often lifesaving care,” says ASPCA Supervisory Special Investigator Annemarie Lucas. “By making a complaint to the police or humane society in your area—you can even do so anonymously—you help ensure that animals in need are rescued and that perpetrators of animal cruelty are brought to justice.”
If you see signs of animal abuse, don’t keep it to yourself. Here’s how to report cruelty in your area.
Questions or concerns about calling in a cruelty complaint? Take a look at our Reporting Cruelty FAQ.
International Rescue- Turkey
The opinions expressed above are those of Ipek Rauscan and her rescue group. It is presented for informational purposes. JONAH AND AN OVERVIEW OF THE SITUATION OF STRAY ANIMALS IN TURKEY FOR THE TPPC.TV PODCAST ON NEW YEAR’S EVE 2008
was a 2-year old stray dog born in the city of Van in Turkey, a country with a history of neglect and cruelty toward stray animals. Like his fellow stray animals, Jonah’s life was nothing but absolute horror, torture and despair…. Jonah experienced 730 days, 17520 hours of incessant misery. On a lucky day, he could find some rotten, dirty food from the garbage. Even that was a luxury to him, because most other days his stomach was completely empty. Clean drinking water was out of the question anyway (maybe some rain was his only chance of water). But even those “rotten food available” days were scarce for Jonah. He was on the brink of starvation for most of those 17520 hours he managed to survive in a country where stray dogs have no name.
Just as you would think that life could not get worse for Jonah, it did. On 10 November 2008, Jonah was hit by a car on the highway, and then of course the driver fled the scene. Jonah was left to lie in agony by the side of the road, with his two back legs broken, with his suffering just simply beyond description. With those two back legs broken, Jonah was now only able to crawl and he somehow caught the attention of someone in Van with a heart… A good man who saw Jonah’s misery and called the municipality of Van for help.
But no officer at the municipality of Van helped – Jonah kept crawling in the middle of Van for three days. The municipality could not be bothered to send a vet or anybody to go help him. On 13 November 2008, the municipality finally bothered to do something. And what they decided to do was to send in a death squad on Jonah. They sent two garbage collectors and a garbage truck to pick Jonah up. And this is how they picked him up:
They tied a rope around his neck, picked him up with a shovel, and then tossed him into the garbage truck. Jonah screamed and screamed throughout all of this – everybody else enjoyed it. As Jonah was screaming to the top of his lungs, the people around him simply laughed and watched Jonah’s agony as if they were watching a comedy show. The garbage men then dumped him at the city’s garbage disposal site “out of compassion” the official explanation goes. The garbage men were so compassionate that they thought at least he would have found some food there, the municipality later on explained.
At this stage, Jonah was lying paralyzed in the garbage site, and the way he was handled with a shovel had only made it worse. He suffered irreparable damage to his spine, and even if he had lived, he would have been paralyzed for life.
All hell broke loose on the municipality of Van when footage of Jonah’s torture in the hands of municipal workers was announced on the national media in Turkey. The municipality was inundated with phone calls, not just from Turkey, but from around the world. Under such tremendous pressure, the person who calls himself the mayor of Van was forced to act and sent in a team to go collect Jonah from the garbage site. Jonah thus ended up at the Faculty of Veterinarian Medicine Animal Hospital at the University of Van.
If you can call it that of course – the hospital in Van had very very little to do to treat Jonah because they did not have the facilities there at their disposal to handle a dog as severely damaged as Jonah. This was when once again animal lovers from all over the world offered help. Some offered to send money for Jonah’s treatment, others offered to adopt him, yet others offered to arrange for him to be treated at the best animal hospitals in the United Kingdom and / or the United States….
But it was not meant to be…. Because all of those offers had to be rejected as those offers of help from abroad were “an insult to Turkey’s national pride”. Turkey had its own resources to treat Jonah, they said, and those trying to arrange help for Jonah from abroad were “traitors”. The mayor of Van agreed with all of this, he declared that the dog was going to stay in Van. Period. Jonah was condemned to stay there in Van in the hands of vets who had little if anything to do for Jonah's welfare…
Jonah’s conditions deteriorated on the morning of 28 November 2008. And he didn’t make it, he died on 1 December 2008. Jonah became a victim of ultra nationalists masquerading as animal lovers and monsters masquerading as humans. His dead body is at the pathology lab of the animal hospital in Van at the moment. They are trying to write a report on his cause of death. Don’t bother, here it is. Jonah’s cause of death is Turkey – where stray animals have no name….
I myself was one of the individuals who was declared a “traitor” for I was liasing with a United-Kingdom based animal rights group that offered to transfer to a hydrotherapy center for paralyzed dogs like Jonah. There is no such center in Turkey, and Jonah could have had a second chance in life had he been allowed to go there. If we can pull it off, the UK group and I will try to establish a “Jonah Center for Paralyzed Dogs” in Turkey dedicated to the loving memory of Jonah who never had a chance.
Of course, what happened to Jonah is particularly tragic but unfortunately it is not too far removed from the experience of stray animals all around Turkey. For decades, Turkey had no official policy on stray animals. They did not officialy exist. Back in the year 2004, the Turkish parliament enacted the “Animal Protection Act” that guaranteed the right to life of all animals, including stray animals, in the country. Under the same law, the “neuter and return” system for the control of stray animal population was adopted. “Neuter and return” is the most humane solution to combatting the over-population of stray animals. It is recommended by the World Health Organization and a systematic implementation of neuter and return is expected to effectively solve the issue within a period of 7-8 years. Turkey adopted a universal “no kill” policy in shelters in 2004, and required that all stray animals that cannot be homed within a period of 10 days be returned to their natural living after being neutered, vaccinated and ear-tagged.
The problem is that the law is rarely implemented – Turkey’s stray animals keep breeding and breeding as municipal authorities that are supposed to implement the law do not bother. Just as soon as you manage to rescue one puppy from the street, 10 new ones are born in the absence of a system of neutering. Poor Jonah was born that way…It is a vicious cycle that will never end so long as the authorities do not implement the law.
Obviosuly, the officials are not the only problem in Turkey. The animal rights movement in Turkey which fails often times to act with one voice constitutes another part of the problem. As the story of Jonah illustrates, a particular segment of the movement advocates quite a nationalistic, actually racist, discourse that declares all assistance coming from foreign countries as an insult on Turkey’s national pride. Others cannot manage to cooperate as their personal rivalries get in the way of the welfare of animals. A divided animal rights community is completely the opposite of what this country needs.
The ordinary man on the street is another problem. Under the law, animals that cannot be re-homed need to live on the streets. Yet there is widespread cruelty toward them there. The average Turkish citizen is not a fan of dogs! Abuse and torture on the steets toward stray animals is a common phenomenon. And, what is worse is that, there is almost no punishment for doing so. Killing a stray animal is a “misdemeanour” under Turkish law that comes with a fine of about 200 US dollars only! The fine for other forms of cruelty short of killing is of course lower than that – not deterrent at all.
Me and my friends try to combat all this to the best of our ability by organizing ourselves on Facebook. We have established several groups that help us re-home stray or abandoned animals and organize campaigns focusing on animal rights. Facebook offers a unique platform for animal rights activists to connect with one another and act collectively for the good of suffering animals in Turkey.
To this day, we have re-homed and continue to re-home many animals through our re-homing groups
And we are currently working on our new project “No Vote for Animal Murderers”
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=39823398437 which seeks to send to politicans ahead of the municipal election in Turkey in March 2009 a strong warning that they cannot keep ignoring animal welfare.
If you want to help out with the stray animal cause in Turkey,
Please join the Facebook groups mentioned above where we send constant news and information about our efforts
Please contact Turkish diplomatic missions where you are to express your concern with the welfare of stray animals in Turkey (for a list of Turkish diplomatic missions and their contact details, please visit http://www.e-konsolosluk.net/Contact/CI_Turkish.aspx)
