(US-MD)FUND FOR ANIMALS FILES FEDERAL LAWSUIT TO STOP KILLING OFMUTE SWANS IN MARYLAND

[Tracey McIntire]

For Immediate Release

FUND FOR ANIMALS FILES FEDERAL LAWSUIT TO STOP KILLING OF MUTE SWANS IN
MARYLAND

WASHINGTON (May 13, 2003) -- The Fund for Animals and several Eastern
Shore residents today filed a complaint in federal court challenging the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s controversial decision to authorize
Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) agents to shoot 1,500
federally protected mute swans on the Chesapeake Bay—roughly half of the
state’s total population.

“The state of Maryland has been given a blank check to kill hundreds of
mute swans at any time and any place, without even making a cursory
attempt to address individual local problems,” said Michael Markarian,
President of The Fund for Animals. “It may be psychologically soothing
for state officials to shoot swans rather than address the real problems
facing our Bay—such as the waste run-off from the billions of chickens
raised in intensive confinement every year on the Eastern Shore—but it
only turns these majestic birds into scapegoats for major industrial
polluters.”

Although Maryland officials have repeatedly referred to mute swans as
being “overpopulated,” the total number in Maryland has actually
decreased since 1999. The small population of swans is alleged to be
threatening “submerged aquatic vegetation” (SAV) in the Chesapeake Bay,
yet the DNR’s own mute swan management plan flatly concedes that the
“decline of SAV has been attributed primarily to elevated levels of
nutrients and suspended sediments,” not to swans. The DNR stated in a
letter last fall that “the bay-wide impact of the collective Maryland
mute swan population are negligible at current numbers,” that “mute
swans are not the primary cause of the decline of SAV in the Chesapeake
Bay,” and that the state has not even finished its ongoing scientific
research to “quantify mute swan impacts on SAV in the Chesapeake Bay.”

Mute swans are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the
International Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds. The
federal permit, however, allows the swans to be killed at any time and
in any location of the state, regardless of when and where local impacts
may occur, in violation of federal and international law. The agencies
failed to conduct even the most basic study of what alternatives are
available and how the swan killing program would effect the
environment—including the orphaning of baby cygnets during swan nesting
season.

The Fund for Animals is represented in the case by the public interest
law firm Meyer & Glitzenstein. A copy of the 18-page complaint filed
today is available online at www.fund.org/uploads/MuteSwanComplaint.pdf.