Invasive Species

In the Pacific Northwest, invasive species can be a real problem, one of the big reasons why is because many things are important onto our coastline. One of the invasive species in Oregon are the Mute Swan. The Mute Swan is native to Europe and Asia, and was brought to the Americas between the 1800’s and 1900’s. So, the question is what ways does the mute swan effect our environment, and what can we do to decrease the amount of harm the Mute Swan causes in our wetlands?
The Mute Swan is a large white swan with a very unique orange bill with a black border. It has a very different knob on its bill and their largest colonies can have over 100 couples in them. They can become very aggressive, even towards humans. They chase other water birds including loons, and they keep those birds from nesting. They are one of the most aggressive waterfowl in the world, and therefore force native species to nest and feed in insufficient areas reducing the carrying capacity of coastal wetlands for staging and breeding waterfowl. Because of their aggressive nature, Mute Swans also kill many other water birds leaving their nests abandoned and unprotected by predators, causing the quality and quantity of wetland habitats to continue to decline in North America. The Mute Swan has almost no predators, which also helps its incredible population increase. One Mute Swan can uproot 20 pounds of submersed aquatic vegetation daily, thereby reducing important native aquatic plants. They are a huge problem in the great lake states, increasing in population by 10% or 20% annually. Mute Swans are ruining our aquatic life not only in the Pacific Northwest, but even more on the east coast and in the great lake basin, so what is our solution?
Although Mute Swans are a partial problem on the west coast, they mainly affect the east coast and the great lake basin. When researching for information on management strategies, all the big articles and interesting information I found were about the birds...