New Yorkers in Uproar Over Planned Mass-Killing of Swans

A mute swan in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Image: Brandon Keim/WIRED

In the menagerie of human mythology, mute swans occupy a special place. Across millennia they’ve symbolized transformation and devotion, light and beauty. Now a plan to eradicate the birds from New York has made them symbols of something else: a bitter and very modern environmental controversy.

The debate swirls around a host of prickly questions. 

• Are mute swans rapacious destroyers of wetlands, or 
• unfairly demonized because they’re not native to this area? 
• Are some species in a given place more valuable than others, and why? 
• Which deserves more protection, the animals that inhabit our landscapes, or the ones that might thrive in their absence? 

The answers depend on whom you ask.

“Mute swans always attract controversy, and tend to polarize people. And, as with most things, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle,” said waterfowl researcher Chris Elphick of the University of Connecticut. “The real issue is that there are no simple answers.”

Mute swans are not native to North America. New York’s population descended from escapees imported for ornamental gardens in the late 1800s. Weighing up to 40 pounds apiece, they can eat 10 pounds of aquatic vegetation daily. In their absence, that food might be eaten by native wildlife. Mute swans are also aggressive during nesting season, and have been blamed for attacking ducks and pushing out other waterfowl.

Late in January, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation issued a draft of a plan to reduce New York’s wild mute swan population to zero by 2025. Nests and eggs would be destroyed; a few adults might be sterilized or permitted to live on in captivity, but the rest would be killed.

“They are large, destructive feeding birds, and as much as they are beautiful, they can wreak havoc on the underwater habitat that a lot of other fish and wildlife depend on,” said Bryan Swift, a DEC waterfowl specialist and lead author of the plan. “We have an obligation to sustain native species. The question then is, ‘At what level?’ But in the case of introduced species, I don’t think we have that same obligation.”

That’s one way of looking at it. “We have so little opportunity to experience wildlife in New York City,” said David Karopkin, director of animal advocacy group GooseWatch NYC, “and now they’re targeting the most beautiful animals that we do have. The fact of the matter is, they’re part of our community.”

Were mute swans not so beautiful, the plan might not have caused much outcry. But unlike other animals tagged as invasive and pestilential — like Burmese pythons, feral hogs, and snakehead fish — mute swans are widely beloved. For people who live near wetlands around Long Island and the Hudson Valley, where most of New York’s mute swans live, they’re also a part of everyday life.
'The real issue is that there are no simple answers.'To their defenders, the fact that mute swans are non-native carries little weight. As one Queens resident told the New York Times, “If they were born here, they should be considered native by now.” And some think the swans’ heritage is being held arbitrarily against them.

“If Mute Swans were native to North America, they would not be viewed negatively by state wildlife agencies,” said ornithologist Don Heintzelman, an author of bird-watching field guides who is working with Friends of Animals, a New York-based animal advocacy group, to oppose the plan. Complaints that that mute swans harm other wildlife “are greatly overblown,” he said.

Over the last few years, some scientists have argued that non-native species are unfairly persecuted, their negative effects too frequently assumed rather than conclusively demonstrated. In fact, the evidence for ecological harm by mute swans is somewhat mixed.

In a review of mute swan impacts on wetlands published this month, French ecologists said the swans sometimes attacked other birds — but sometimes they did not. Likewise, their feeding habits sometimes damaged aquatic plant communities, but not always.

“The consequences of mute swan presence may strongly differ from an ecological context to another, so that no simple rule of thumb can be provided,” wrote the researchers. They did, however, say that the risk of mute swans reproducing prolifically and out-competing other species could justify their eradication from North America “as a safety measure.”

Swan defenders say the need for a safety measure is far from clear. In Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, where a controversial mute swan eradication program was enacted in 2003 to help restore aquatic vegetation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service previously said that swans had likely done little harm to seagrass beds.

“That’s a good example of how the science on this is incomplete,” said Brian Shapiro, New York state director of the Humane Society of the United States. Whatever effects New York’s 2,200 swans may have, he said, is a drop in the bucket compared to human-generated pollution and habitat destruction.

But scientists argue that the effects would be much more severe if mute swan populations grow as anticipated, and more difficult to control. “The dilemma wildlife managers face is that if they wait until there is no doubt that native species are being adversely affected, it will be much, much harder to do anything about it,” said Elphick. And although human impacts on habitat and native wildlife are undoubtedly greater, mute swans could consume a disproportionate amount of resources.

“Introduced species are a major cause of extinction and biodiversity loss, and the concern is that if they’re not controlled then we will see the world’s biota become much more homogenous,” Elphick said. “Mute swans are just one example of many.”

Mute swans’ lives are not the only ones that matter, said Michael Schummer, a waterfowl ecologist at the State University of New York at Oswego. People care so deeply about mute swans because they’re aware of them — but if they paid more attention to birds they impact, they might care about those as well.

A tundra swan in Ulmstead Point, Maryland. Image: Emily Carter Mitchell/Flickr

Migratory tundra swans, said Schummer, which fly every year between the Arctic and southeastern United States, rely on those same wetlands. If they land after a 1,000-mile flight and can’t find a meal, it’s a disaster. “But maybe people don’t recognize that, or even realize that there’s a native swan that migrates,” Schummer said.

Swift noted that two dozen other duck species share the mute swans’ habitat, yet people are frequently unaware of them. And unlike migratory birds, mute swans stay in the same locale year-round, feeding through the growing season. “It’s like pulling up corn every time it sprouts,” Swift said. “It has a much more lasting and damaging effect.”

“I value the long-term stability of the ecosystem for the individuals that live within it,” said Schummer, who supports the DEC plan. “When that is threatened by one species, and the well-being of the collective is at risk, then something needs to be done.”

Given these competing and deeply-entrenched views, a compromise seems unlikely. Yet there may yet be a middle ground, says behavioral ecologist Marc Bekoff, a pioneer of an emerging discipline called “compassionate conservation,” which tries to balance species- and population-level considerations with the well-being of individual animals.

“The take of compassionate conservation is that individuals count. Our motto is, ‘Do no harm.’ In this case, it would be worth pursuing every single possible non-lethal alternative,” said Bekoff. Rather than killing mute swans outright, as is happening in Maryland, wildlife managers could try to prevent eggs from hatching by shaking them or spraying them with oil. Swans might also be sterilized.

These are just possibilities, said Bekoff. What matters is that people try to find alternatives to killing. In the end, non-lethal measures may prove to be the only control palatable to a public that’s come to adore swans, whatever their impacts.

Of course, non-lethal methods tend to be more expensive than killing. Volunteer assistance from the public may be required. Friends of Animals director Edita Birnkrant said her group would oppose such measures, while Shapiro said the Humane Society would be open to helping.

“We want there to be a focus on non-lethal management,” Shapiro said, noting that Humane Society volunteers have helped to non-lethally control Canada geese by scaring them with dogs or shaking their eggs. “We’d like to have a dialogue on this.”

Swift said he’s open to such a discussion, and would welcome the help. “There’s definitely room to work on this issue,” he said. Following public outcry, he’s also considered treating New York’s mute swan populations differently. Those around Lake Ontario, which are growing by about 13 percent every year, might be eliminated, while Long Island’s swans could be managed to balance their impacts with public sentiment.

“I can’t speak for the whole agency,” Swift said, “but I’m certainly going to entertain that idea and discuss it with other people involved in management.”

New York’s DEC is accepting public comment on the plan until February 21st. If things go their way, those non-native swans might just become fully naturalized ecological citizens.

ORIGINAL: Wired

By Brandon Keim  @9brandon

02.06.14

Brandon is a Wired Science reporter and freelance journalist. Based in Brooklyn, New York and sometimes Bangor, Maine, he's fascinated with science, culture, history and nature. (Twitter | Google+) Read more by Brandon Keim.

Absurd Creature of the Week: Foot-Long, Sex-Crazed Snails That Pierce Tires and Devour Houses

Giant African land snails carry quarters with them everywhere they go in case they need to, like, use payphones and stuff. Image: Roberta Zimmerman, USDA APHIS

Ah, the innocence of children. So free of corruption and cynicism, so sweet and sincere. Laughing and playing and introducing supremely destructive monster snails to Florida, where the beasts eat almost anything that’s green and then crap all over houses — quite literally laying waste to whole neighborhoods.

This actually happened in the 1960s, when a boy vacationing with his family in Hawaii had pocketed a few giant African land snails (Lissachatina fulica), a mollusk that grows to a foot long and a full pound. Hawaii had been battling the pest, and so too would Florida, where the boy returned with his new friends. Once home, he quickly grew bored of the snails and handed them over to his grandmother, who set them free in her backyard.

What ensued was an invasion by rapidly reproducing critters that have over the last century spread out of their native East Africa into tropical climes all over the world, from Asia to South America, as stowaways on ships or as pets brought home by people with a thing for snails. In Florida, eradication took seven years. Other places, like Brazil, have not been so lucky in their efforts.

You see, the giant African land snail is a hermaphroditic love machine. “Snails have female bits and male bits,” explained biologist Robert Cowie of the University of Hawaii, “a single pore, through which if you’re acting as a male, a penis extrudes, or if you’re acting as a female, through which the other snail puts its penis in. And in some cases they can do it reciprocally.”

Thus the giant snail never meets another snail it can’t get busy with. Once fertilized, the snail will bury several hundred eggs a few inches below ground, and because of the incredible size of the species, the young will emerge far larger than native varieties, making them that much more resistant to predation.

As these eggs demonstrate, cash rules everything around the giant snails from a very early age. Image: Wikimedia

Alas, four decades after evicting this enormous, fecund snail, Florida finds itself overrun once again. The creature was reintroduced here in 2011, and this time, according to Cowie, it may well be “bizarre, voodoo-like religious proceedings” to blame. The snail’s slime, he says, is coveted in certain South American rituals, and practitioners may have released the giant snails into their Miami-area backyards, hoping they’d breed freely.

The USDA and U.S. District Attorney’s Office are investigating this. It probably doesn’t help the ritualists’ case, though, that the year before the current outbreak, authorities questioned a Florida man said to have convinced his followers to drink the fluid from live giant African land snails, which he sliced open before squeezing the slime into their mouths. If you can believe it, the victims fell violently ill — ironic, what with this being a healing ritual.

Anyway, if it was indeed the practitioners who released the snails so they (the snails, not the practitioners) could multiply rapidly, it worked. Big time. Florida agriculture officials have collected 137,000 giant snails in just over two years. Compare that to the relatively few 17,000 collected in the first eradication in the 1960s, and you soon see the magnitude of this problem.

Today, Miami is simply overrun with the things. Not only do the giant snails chow on some 500 economically important plants in the area, they’re devouring houses. It seems they have a taste for stucco, which contains precious calcium. Without a ready supply of the stuff to fuel their amazing growth, they’ll simply turn on each other — at least in captivity.

You may be getting the impression that the giant snail’s natural habitat is the human hand. It is. Image: fiddledydee/Flickr

“A long time ago I had some African snails in the lab, in an aquarium-type tank,” said Cowie, “and apparently I wasn’t providing a sufficient source of calcium, and they would just eat each other’s shells. These snails produce big shells, they need a lot of calcium, and a lot of people these days when they keep snails they’ll put a bit of cattle bone in the terrarium for the snails to chew on, just to get the calcium.”

And because I know you were wondering: Yes, you can eat giant African land snails. But cook them well. I mean really well. Just boil them for a month. Grill them with napalm if you have it. Because like many snails and semi-slugs, this species carries the deadly rat lungworm.

As its name suggests, the parasite attacks rats, which pass the larvae in their feces. Snails that eat this waste are infected, as are folks who eat the snails. In humans, the larvae attack the brain, leading to meningitis and often a pretty horrible death. This has been documented as a particular problem in China, where people may not be cooking giant snails sufficiently.

But for all the folks who cook their giant snails properly, still others ingest them accidentally. All manner of critters could very easily end up in your Caesar salad, for instance, since cooks don’t always peel apart the lettuce before chopping it. “And it could just as well be a little baby African snail,” said Cowie. “OK, it’s a bit crunchy, but so is the lettuce a bit crunchy, and you’d never know. So that’s the way people generally get infected in places where they don’t habitually eat raw snails.”

The giant snail’s shell can grow to 8 inches long. To grow such a home, it eats the calcium-rich stucco from our own homes. There’s some sort of symbolism there, but I can’t figure it out. Image: Wikimedia

With such health risks combined with the damage to agriculture and the snails just being a public menace — with shells so big and sharp that they can puncture tires that run them over, for instance — Florida is sinking millions of dollars into its eradication measures. The state has 50 full-time staffers assigned to the project, said Denise Feiber of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which is leading the effort.

By deploying common over-the-counter snail poison and advertising a hotline residents can call to report sightings, authorities have so far been able to contain the critter to Miami. And no, pouring salt on them is in no way an acceptable option for homeowners. It’s a horrible death. Osmosis pulls the water out of the snail, killing it of dehydration. Just don’t do it. Ever.

But it’s possible, according to Cowie, that the giant snail could well spread to other Gulf states, though luckily they probably can’t tolerate the cooler weather in Georgia and other states farther north (contrary to popular belief, Hotlanta is not in fact always hot — most of the time it’s just Atlanta).

Cowie knows all too well the explosive population growth these things are capable of when left unchecked. In Hawaii, where he lives, the giant African land snail was introduced in the 1930s by Japanese immigrants who wanted to keep them as pets. They have since essentially assumed ecological control, tearing through agriculture and muscling out native species.

In 1950s Hawaii, “there were stories of on a rainy day, when the snails all came out and crawled all over the road,” Cowie said, “the cars would squish them and cars would end up skidding on the squished snail. Dead, crushed snail and slime, sort of all mish-mashed together by the cars. So that was when Hawaii got serious about trying to control them. And we’ve not been successful at controlling them.”

So come to Hawaii. Come to Florida. There’s plenty of sunshine and escargot. Just bring a fork, some butter, and maybe a French accent, if that’ll get you in the mood.

Browse the full Absurd Creature of the Week archive here. Have an animal you want me to write about? Email matthew_simon@wired.com or ping me on Twitter at @mrMattSimon.

ORIGINAL: Wired

By Matt Simon

Giant Amazon Fish Species Discovered

These large Amazonian fish, known as arapaima (pirarucú), are photographed in a public aquarium in the Ukraine. The dark bar on the lower side of the head is an elongated sensory cavity. Credit: SUNY-ESF

A new type of giant Amazonian fish — one for which only a single species was known for more than a century — has been discovered in Brazil, scientists say.

The fish is a new species of arapaima (pirarucú), which are huge freshwater fish native to the Amazon River in Brazil. The discovery suggests there may be important new conservation issues to consider, particularly with regards to overfishing and the region's expanding fish farming industry.

"Everybody for 160 years had been saying there's only one kind of arapaima," Donald Stewart, a professor in the department of environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York in Syracuse, said in a statement. "But we know now there are various species, including some not previously recognized. Each of these unstudied giant fishes needs conservation assessment."

Arapaima are one of the most important commercial fishes in the Amazon, but their diversity has long been overlooked, Stewart said. [Photos of the Largest Fish on Earth]

In the mid-1800s, four species of arapaima were recognized. Then, in 1868, Albert Günther, a scientist at the British Museum of Natural History, published an opinion piece that lumped all arapaima into one species: Arapaima gigas. Günther's views eventually became the commonly accepted classification.

Stewart sifted through 19th-century scientific literature and studied original specimens that had been preserved at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, and found that all four of the species originally described in the mid-1800s were distinct.

The new discovery means there are now five known species of arapaima. The fifth species was collected in 2001, and was found close to where the Solimões and Purus rivers link up in Brazil. The newly identified species, known scientifically as A. leptosome, has several distinguishing features, such as an elongated sensory cavity on the head, a sheath that covers part of the dorsal fin and a distinctive color pattern.

Understanding the different species of arapaima is important for maintaining the health of the fish and the broader Amazonian ecology. Failure to address these differences could have far-reaching consequences, Stewart said.

"For example, there is a growing aquaculture industry for arapaima, so they are being moved about and stocked in ponds for rearing," he explained. "Eventually, pond-reared fishes escape and, once freed, the ecological effects are irreversible. A species that is endangered in its native habitat may become an invasive species in another habitat. The bottom line is that we shouldn't be moving these large, predatory fishes around until the species and their natural distributions are better known. Given the uncertainties, precaution is needed."

Arapaima populations in the Amazon Basin have also been affected by the lack of fishing regulations in the past century. "The likely impacts of this magnitude of overfishing on species diversity are not good," Stewart said.

The newly discovered fish species should have implications for conservation efforts in the Amazon Basin.

"If you're going to do conservation biology, you have to be sure about the taxonomy of the animals being studied," Stewart said. "If each study area has a different species, then results from one area should not be applied to manage populations in the next area."

The detailed findings of the study were published this month in the journal Copeia.

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow.
Follow LiveScience@livescience, Facebook & Google+.
Original article on LiveScience.

ORIGINAL: Live Science By Denise Chow, Staff Writer October 14, 2013 02:07pm ET

Por la protección de la Ciénaga de Ayapel

Investigadores de la Universidad de Antioquia desarrollaron un proyecto de extensión para elaborar biocombustible con plantas acuáticas de la Ciénaga de Ayapel. Los estudios mostraron que la región está bajo una gran amenaza ambiental y social.

Los investigadores recolectaron plantas en tres puntos distintos de la Ciénaga para determinar sus propiedades fisicoquímicas, térmicas, de humedad y de combustión.

En Ayapel, la mayoría de los habitantes viven de la Ciénaga: cazan, pescan, siembran; pero ésta ha sido maltratada durante años y los recursos se están agotando. La región solía ser boscosa, pero los árboles fueron quemados y talados para sembrar pastos y llenarlos de vacas. En sus aguas abundaban el sábalo, el bagre y el bocachico, pero con la sobreexplotación de su pesca han comenzado a escasear. Y, mientras el precio del arroz que se cultiva en sus tierras cae por los tratados de libre comercio, el precio del oro sube y con él la explotación minera ilegal.


La Ciénaga de Ayapel, en Córdoba, hace parte de la tierra inundada, del diluvio, como algunos llaman a la región de La Mojana en el Caribe colombiano, porque en ella desbordan los ríos Cauca, San Jorge y Magdalena, inundándola en épocas lluviosas.


Allí, investigadores de la Universidad de Antioquia durante diez años han realizado estudios y proyectos socioambientales para preservar los ecosistemas y mejorar las condiciones de la población, cuyas opciones de empleo, salud y educación son mínimas. En esa cruzada, su gran aliada ha sido la Corporación para el Desarrollo Integral de la Ciénaga de Ayapel – Corpoayapel.


“Hemos trabajado con la Universidad desde que se creó la Corporación en 2003, porque ha hecho los únicos estudios ambientales serios sobre la región”, afirmó Luz Estela Álvarez, directora ejecutiva de Corpoayapel.


El primero en llegar fue Néstor Aguirre, PhD, licenciado en biología y química. Pocos años después llegó Fabio Vélez, ingeniero sanitario y candidato a doctor. Juntos habían participado en la fundación del Grupo de Investigación Gestión y Modelación Ambiental —GAIA—, y actualmente pertenecen al Grupo de Investigación GeoLimna, ambos de la Facultad de Ingeniería de la Alma Mater.


Entre finales de 2012 y mediados de 2013, con tres estudiantes de ingeniería de materiales desarrollaron un proyecto apoyado por el Banco de Proyectos de la Vicerrectoría de Extensión para elaborar briquetas (biocombustibles) a partir de plantas acuáticas abundantes en la Ciénaga: Eichhornia heterosperma, Eichhornia azurea y Eichhornia crassipes, esta última considerada por la población como una especia invasora que crece rápidamente e impide la navegación, por ello la llaman tapón.

“En la zona rural no hay electricidad, la gente utiliza leña para cocinar y la obtienen principalmente del mangle dulce, un arbolito importante para el ecosistema, resistente a las inundaciones y criadero de alevinos. Su tala aumenta el problema ambiental de la zona, por ello queremos ofrecer otra alternativa”, explicó el ingeniero.


Recolectaron plantas en tres puntos distintos de la Ciénaga para determinar sus propiedades fisicoquímicas, térmicas, de humedad y de combustión; también emplearon cascarillas de arroz, para evitar que estos residuos sigan siendo arrojados al agua, contaminándola. “Encontramos que con una mezcla óptima entre las tres especies se puede elaborar un buen biocombustible. Además, el resultado puede aplicarse a plantas acuáticas de otras zonas”, explicó el investigador.

Una amenaza ambiental

Con los análisis de laboratorio también se identificó presencia de mercurio en las plantas tomadas de las tres zonas. Este hallazgo, sumado al de un proyecto anterior, en donde encontraron mercurio en el sedimento de la Ciénaga, podría significar que esta sustancia, residuo de la minería ilegal, está envenenando las aguas, penetrando y amenazando todo el ecosistema.

“Es necesario hacer estudios que determinen el impacto, en qué cantidades está entrando a la Ciénaga, cuál es la ruta que está siguiendo, si está llegando a la cadena trófica, si la gente ya se está contaminando”, expresó el investigador.

Con mercurio, las briquetas no podrían utilizarse como biocombustible. Entonces diseñaron un horno ecoeficiente, que además de llegar a altas temperaturas, mantener el calor y quemar con poco humo, también incorpora un proceso mediante el cual el mercurio puede separarse de las plantas contaminadas.


Con su construcción, la población podría hacer sus propias briquetas mediante un procedimiento sencillo que los investigadores describieron paso a paso en una cartilla. “La idea es que puedan venderlas y tener otra opción de ingresos, pues queremos contribuir a aliviar un poco sus problemas económicos y sociales”, indicó Vélez.

También diseñaron e instalaron un deshidratador solar, el cual aprovecha las condiciones climáticas de la zona, utilizando fuentes energéticas renovables y de bajo costo para el secado de las plantas; las cuales deben secarse y deshidratarse después de ser recolectadas, lavadas y cortadas; y antes de ser mezcladas y comprimidas en las briquetas.


“En el proyecto participaron madres cabeza de familia, gestores sociales, profesores y estudiantes de colegio. Ellos son fundamentales para recoger y difundir la conciencia ambiental. En eso nos apoyó el grupo DIDES de la Facultad de Educación de la Alma Mater, con una metodología llamada PRACCIS para transmitir el conocimiento a la comunidad”, contó el ingeniero.

Actualmente se llevan a cabo otras iniciativas en la zona conjuntamente entre diferentes grupos. Con el Grupo de Investigación en Gestión Ambiental —GIGA—, están sembrando una planta africana conocida como La Moringa, para usarla en potabilización de agua; también desarrollaron un concentrador de luz solar, llamado SODIS, sobre el cual se ubican botellas plásticas transparentes para que con la luz del sol se desinfecte el agua, acabando con la microbiota. Y, con el grupo GAIA, se ubicaron equipos climatológicos en la Ciénaga para monitorear temperatura, viento, humedad, radiación solar y lluvia, y relacionarlos con el cambio climático.

La creatividad al servicio de la sociedad
La experiencia y los resultados de este proyecto, el impacto de sus hallazgos para la comunidad de Ayapel y las nuevas propuestas para mitigar el daño ambiental en la Ciénaga, serán presentados por los investigadores y representantes de Corpoayapel como parte de la reprogramación del Encuentro de Extensión Universitaria 2013.


ORIGINAL: Universidad de Antioquia
por Diana Isabel Rivera - Vicerrectoría de Extensión
30 de Septiembre de 2013