BALTIMORE, June 16 (UPI) -- A federal judge has given Maryland permission to start killing mute swans, ending two years of legal challenges from animal rights groups.
The first swans were imported to the Chesapeake Bay in the 1950s by an estate owner who thought they would beautify his property. Since then, they have multiplied, and the Department of Natural Resources says they are destroying native plants and threatening migrating waterfowl that use the bay.
"I'm not going to be very specific about when we are going to start, because we don't want to have someone get in the way and make this any less safe or less humane than it can be," Jonathan McKnight, DNR's associate director for habitat conservation, told the Baltimore Sun. "It will be this year. We think we've held off for too long."
Two years ago, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the swans were covered by laws protecting migratory birds. A member of Maryland's congressional delegation -- Republican Wayne Gilchrest -- last year put language in a federal spending bill that removed the protection.
