Tundra Swan Permits Have Increased

[Tundra Swan]

Hello Guys,

The USFWS has increased the number of Tundra Swan permits by 25% for the 2017 - 2018 season. That means that there will be another 2400 tags available over the regular 9600 tags for the Eastern Population of Tundra Swans.

If you want to hunt Tundra Swans you can go to the United States or you can contact Delta Waterfowl and the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters to tell them that enough is enough ... you want our 41% share of the tags. If you do not ask then you will not hunt.

I prepared a Tundra Swan fact sheet that provides a review and update on the hunting of swans in North America from 1615 to the present. I provided 100 copies for the Delta Waterfowl Dinner in June. Did anyone see them?

For more information see the note in Wildfowl Magazine (Vol 32 No 4 Page 11).

Jerome

 

[Tundra Swan]

Hello Guys,

I just received the following update from The Trumpeter Swan Society regarding the expansion to the Tundra Swan hunting opportunities in the United States.

Please submit an e-mail or a letter to Ms. Dawn Sucee (Fish and Wildlife Biologist, OFAH) indicating your support for a Tundra Swan season in Ontario if you have not already done so.

Sorry ... unable to cut and paste the update at this time ... will get some assistance and try again later.

Jerome

 

[Tundra Swan]

Hello Guys,

Here is the update. Please read my thread "Trumpeter Swan Population Report" so that you will understand the rationale for these changes.

Jerome

Proposed changes to Tundra Swan hunts will impact Trumpeter Swans

In the Central and Atlantic Flyways, Tundra Swans of the Eastern Population are currently hunted through a permit system in five states (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, North Carolina, and Virginia). Hunters find it difficult to distinguish a Tundra Swan from a Trumpeter Swan. In those states, any hunter who mistakenly shoots a Trumpeter Swan during the Tundra Swan season is violating the law by taking a species for which no hunting season has been authorized.

The USFWS proposal includes the option allowing the current five states in those two Flyways to not penalize hunters for mistakenly shooting a Trumpeter Swan in the Tundra Swan hunt.

The proposal would also allow for states in the Central, Mississippi and Atlantic Flyways, where no Tundra Swan hunting is currently allowed, to open a future Tundra Swan season under certain conditions, with accidental take of Trumpeter Swans allowed without hunter penalty. New swan hunt proposals could include states such as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio that have restored Trumpeter Swans, and also have Tundra Swans migrating through in the fall to their wintering grounds on the East Coast. Limiting the total allowable take of Trumpeter Swans is also being considered for existing and new proposed hunts in those Flyways.

Comments can be electronically submitted here to the USFWS. Any comment submitted should be attributed to you personally, rather than being offered as representing TTSS. The Society has already submitted comment.

If you prefer to mail your comments: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-HQ-MB-2017-0028; Division of Policy, Performance, and Management Programs; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: BPHC; 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041