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Sign the petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/832/485/616/veto-s-065889-a-and-a-08790-a/ To learn more about the issues with mute swans: http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/mute-swans.html

Post them up. Probably best to leave out the auto-replies though...

Timeline 1970’s NY declares the mute swan a migratory game bird, but no hunting season is established. Early 1990s: USFWS creates a mute swan strategy in concert with states in the Atlantic Flyway including NY. During the decade of 1990 NY adopts a mute swan management plan. 2014 NY creates a revised mute swan management plan and opens the plan to public comment through February 21, 2014. In early February around the time public comment was first solicited, various media sources began airing or publishing unfavorably biased messages about the plan throughout the state. Numerous online petitions and letter writing campaigns opposing the DEC’s plan were launched. Local newspapers and the Dec’s face book page were bombarded by letters and posts criticizing the DEC’s plan. On February 19, 2014, even before the comment period ended, and certainly before the plan was finalized and adopted, two legislative bills were introduced which would impose a moratorium on the DEC’s plan. On February 28, 2014, the DEC announced that there will be a revision of the draft plan and another public comment period on the revised mute swan plan, and that because of the comment received on the first draft, the revision will contain non-lethal strategies. This could mean the state is abandoning the goal set among the Atlantic Flyway Council to eliminate the state’s population. Action we took: (What we’ve done = What we want you do) We summarized the process from the start and as it evolved; and made those reports available to our network. We recommended ‘Talking Points’ and created several form letters. We tracked newspaper articles and responded to them in writing with factual information. We participated in the public comment phase by submitting written comment. We all must do this again with the upcoming revised draft and in response to any future mourning dove proposals. In other words, make it a habit… How this ties in with establishing a mourning dove hunting season in NY: Expect a similar response from the non-hunting public to any Dove legislation and/or Mourning Dove Management Plans. Perhaps the emotion will be even stronger for doves, but certainly anti-hunters have gained experience, confidence, and increased the size of their networks during the public opinion battle about mute swan management. Review the timeline and expect things to evolve the same way, perhaps with even more opposition. In the 2014 mute swan management plan, the DEC announced only seven days after the end of the comment period, that they were revising their plan to accommodate those opposed to lethal control. Which we believe might mean the whole plan is undermined, as the goal was to eliminate free ranging mute swans, not “control” the populations. One can argue that sterilization will eventually lead to extirpation, but until we see the revised plan we remain skeptical. Without an organized and coordinated response we will continue to lose these public opinion battles. What could we and/or the DEC do differently? Part of the DEC’s plan included an outreach strategy. However, the outreach must be done before a plan is presented for public comment, not as a strategy of the plan. The first step must be substantial education campaigns directed at the public and lawmakers. By the time the public and lawmakers review a management plan, they have already been exposed to unscientific propaganda. They must get their information about mute swans and mourning doves from sources other than newspapers and animal rights organizations. Each individual sportsman who invests in a little learning can be that other source of information. It is also important to engage other sportsmen in these issues. Inform them about the negative impacts of mute swans and tell them about the thrills of hunting and eating mourning doves. However, rest assured; it will be the public at large, not the sporting community, who decides whether or not the hunting of doves will occur in NY. The DEC's first draft mute swan plan, although there was some divide, had the backing of large conservation/bird watching organizations. Yet animal-rights activists succeeded in exerting enough political pressure to persuade the DEC to not only modify their plan, but likely also to abandon the underlining goal of eliminating mute swans in the state of NY, a goal agreed upon by the Atlantic Flyway Council and followed by other states in the flyway jurisdiction.

Here are three letters written for the Massapequa Observer, however they can be adapted to other newspapers and/or the content can be used as ‘talking points’. Newspapers restrict the number of words in letters they publish. These letters are 78 words, 136 words, and 214 words. All newspapers will not publish your letter unless they can reach you by telephone, during daytime business hours. You must provide a daytime phone number, your full name and full address. If you do not and/or you do not answer your phone, they will not publish your letter. LETTER 1. [email protected] Steve Mosco, Editor Anton Community Newspapers Massapequan Observer 132 East 2nd Street Mineola, NY 11501 The article Not Ready For A Swan Song did not take into account that the rationale behind the DEC’s plan was to protect the nest sites of native waterfowl, prevent overgrazing of submerged aquatic vegetation, and remove one source of water contamination. There are no nonlethal methods to prevent mute swans from drowning native birds, driving them from nesting habitat, overgrazing SAV, and from defecating in the water. Sincerely, LETTER 2. [email protected] Steve Mosco, Editor Anton Community Newspapers Massapequan Observer 132 East 2nd Street Mineola, NY 11501 The article Not Ready For A Swan Song was inaccurate and politically biased. The mute swan plan is not about killing swans, it is about conserving native waterfowl. Public comment should be given careful research and thought; it should not be derived from filter-feeding on propaganda. This biased article was published only two days before the comment deadline. Despite the short notice, the article contained information about the public comment period. It is clear that the intent was to influence readers to hastily comment based only on what they read in the Massapequan Observer and not seek any other information. This article was inaccurate, irresponsible, and politically motivated. Sincerely, LETTER 3. [email protected] Steve Mosco, Editor Anton Community Newspapers Massapequan Observer 132 East 2nd Street Mineola, NY 11501 The article Not Ready For A Swan Song was inaccurate and politically biased. The mute swan plan is not about killing swans, it is about conserving native waterfowl. Public comment should be given careful research and thought; it should not be derived from filter-feeding on propaganda. This biased article was published only two days before the comment deadline. Despite the short notice, the article contained information about the public comment period. It is clear that the intent was to influence readers to hastily comment based only on what they read in the Massapequan Observer and not seek any other information. This article was inaccurate, irresponsible, and politically motivated. This article did not take into account that the rationale behind the DEC’s plan was to protect the nest sites of native waterfowl, prevent overgrazing of submerged aquatic vegetation, and remove one source of water contamination. There are no nonlethal methods to prevent mute swans from drowning native birds, driving them from nesting habitat, overgrazing SAV, and from defecating in the water. Sincerely,

Hopefully most are starting to understand how these things play out and how to respond... Biased Newspaper Article http://www.antonnews.com/massapequanobserver/news/36111-not-ready-for-a-swan-song.html Letter by Anti following article: http://www.antonnews.com/massapequanobserver/opinion/36011-letter-modern-madness-and-the-mute-swan.html Result: Influence Public Opinion Your Response: Write a factual and relevant rebuttal letter to the newspaper. Colloquy: We will be providing form letters, letter writing guidelines, and information on where to send or e-mail these letters very soon. If possible, construct your own letter or modify the form letters without changing the context. If you write your own letter or add to the form letter, be sure to follow the newspapers letter guidelines or they will not publish your letter and you will have wasted your time. Newspapers always require you to provide your full name and address, and daytime phone number. They will attempt to call you three times to verify you wrote the letter. If they do not reach you by telephone they will not publish your letter and you let this opportunity get away. This is NOT the only newspaper to pull this. We need to write as many as we find out about. Any time anything about a bill or a draft plan is released in the news, a DEC press release, or posted on their website; everyone should be on the lookout for antagonistic press. See number 5 for how to do this. It is very simple to be vigilant. Anytime you find an article or press release, you should write in rebuttal if the article is antagonistic toward hunting or sound wildlife management. If the article is neutral or pro-hunting, or on the side of sound ecological principles, it is not as important to write in and we recommend you save your energy for when rebuttals are needed. Do a google search the day after and every day thereafter for about a week, after an article or press release is published, and/or a public comment period opens or closes. For example if you search: Mute Swans New York you will see every article as well as newspaper letters the search engine picks up. You should do three things. First if the letter is antagonistic, write a rebuttal to the publisher. Second, let us know about the article and provide the link. Third, let people in your network know about it and provide them the link.

February 23, 2014 We have been making the unpopular premise that it is wise to abandon the practice of uniting merely for solidarity when merit is absent, to avoid public image issues, bad policy enactment, and because it is a tool in which funnels policy decisions to a relatively select few. This is not suggesting that the decisions for 800,000 NY hunters are being made by ten people, but rather several hundred who are connected, not only to each other, but to various politicians and politically linked organizations. This is not however what this article is about and to understand that we direct you to the archives. We believe however, that we are in fact facing an issue which actually does in impact the sporting community universally. That issue is senate bill 6589 and assembly bill 8790. These bills, wish to impose a two year moratorium on the DEC’s management strategies and thereby likely require the DEC to duplicate an enormous amount of research, apparently because the conclusions of existing research do not support the political agenda of anti-hunters. One of the sponsors of the legislation, Senator Tony Avella, is endorsed by the HSUS, the largest and wealthiest anti-hunting organization in the United States. These proposals appear to have been modeled after a section of the Federal Endangered Species Act which requires an EIS or environmental impact statement in some situations. Although this federal law is sound in our opinion; the EIS as it functions in the Endangered Species Act, pertains to endangered species facing limited and/or declining range, not deleterious introduced species which are expanding their distribution, hence the term ‘invasive’. The wildlife science community at large, not just the DEC, considers mute swans to be a deleterious and invasive species based on its behavior and known impacts. The designation as an invasive species is not arrived at merely because of a species original range as is being suggested by persons opposed to the plan. As a matter of fact there are introduced species that are not necessarily invasive, however that is not the case with mute swans. This legislation also seems to be modeled after fairly recent hydrofracking moratoriums. We agree with the two consecutive moratoriums passed and imposed on hydrofracking in NY to gather more state-specific information. This moratorium proposal is much different, while ironically being very much the same… It is different because the two issues have a much different level of complexity and different levels of scientific consensus. Unlike hydrofracking, which has a history of issues in other states which have not been properly addressed, the published research about mute swans is definitive. There are two forms of research, basic and applied. Basic research is the source of knowledge regarding a specie’s biology, behavior, natural history and how it interacts with plants, animals, and people within a community. Basic research is not merely a source of the proverbial ‘fun facts’; it provides insight into a species population dynamics and how it functions in an ecological system. Applied research is problem orientated and is useful in developing management strategies like the ones outlined in the DEC’s mute swan plan. That statement needs to be qualified because it implies that basic research is never relevant to management strategies and that is not accurate. In other states the published basic research is the foundation for concern about mute swans and published applied research has been used in the development of their management strategies. The DEC’s opinion that mute swans are a harmful species in NY and the strategies within the DEC’s plan, are also guided by research published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. If one pays attention to the literature citations within the draft plan this would be apparent. We speculate the rebuttal to the above will be that state-specific or updated research is needed, but we challenge them to provide a valid reason as to why. In reality they are not interested in biological research; and will seek social research after a two year window of opportunity to make this a public opinion battle during which they can use their abundant resources to exert influence. That will effectively make this a politically-based policy instead of a science-based policy. The goals behind the strategies which comprise the DEC’s plan are to prevent the loss of breeding sites by native birds, protect submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) from over grazing, and remove one more source of water contamination. One of the strategies to achieve those goals is hunting. The plan is being mischaracterized by some of its detractors who claim it is motivated by a desire to expand hunting opportunities; however hunting is only one of the strategies within the plan. Before we continue: we are NOT criticizing environmentalism and we are NOT categorizing people who are opposed to invasive species eradication as environmentalists. We consider ourselves environmentalists. A four year moratorium was initially issued on Hydrofracking. When that expired few people knew what fracking was. Over those four years however, legitimate concerns developed because of a history of events in other states which do allow fracking. Environmentalists organized a campaign against fracking. The first moratorium expired and the industry was anxious to get started. They thought they were going to waltz right in and start making money. They even kept themselves busy over those four years engaging landowners and even entering contracts with them to start drilling away once the moratorium expired. They knew they had a Pro-fracking President and a Pro-fracking governor – yes Obama and Cuomo, the two best friends the industry could ever have. The majority of state representatives also supported fracking, many of them endorsed and/or financed by the industry. But anti frackers were now organized and had history, as well as science on their side. Articles, editorials, and letters to the editor in local newspapers, social media sites such as face book allowed them to recruit new members at an exponential rate. The anti-fracking movement became a force against politicians and big energy. Anti-hunters are well versed in the use articles, editorials, and letters to the editor in local newspapers, and social media sites such as face book, which enable them to influence public opinion and recruit new members at an exponential rate. The HSUS is extremely well funded and it is very common for them to air infomercials on television laden with snappy, attractive propaganda to efficiently reach masses of people. So what is going to happen if the HSUS and their local affiliates in NY State succeed in passing this moratorium on swan eradication? For one thing in two years without intervention the mute swan population will grow 26 percent and their distribution throughout the state will expand as well – remember, conservation issues are time-sensitive…. Can any new research be completed in two years? No, not really… Will any additional research develop any alternative conclusions or strategies? We can’t see how that is possible with legitimate science. Will further research discover the mute swan is an integral part of the ecological processes in the state? No, it will not. However, we are aware of one study which suggested mute swans enable the native waterfowl to access food, but have not reviewed the study. It sounds like pseudo-science, but we will report on this in the future. However, even if this is true, mute swans impact native waterfowl in many ways and native birds do not depend on a symbiotic relationship with mute swans during any part of their life cycle. In other words, native birds feed themselves just fine without mute swans and have been doing for eons before the swans were introduced to this continent; the only significant impacts mute swans have on native waterfowl are negative ones. What a two year moratorium will do, however, besides allow the population size and distribution of mute swans to increase, along with the associated impacts; is it will provide anti-hunters over two years to grandstand on this issue, organize, recruit new members, and influence politicians and public opinion. Since an overwhelming amount of research, as well as common sense, support mute swan eradication, it is doubtful anti-hunters will be able to ultimately block this. However, they will have increased their following and thereby their ability to influence public opinion, politicians and thereby conservation policy by essentially blocking any science-based decisions which are not consistent with their ideologies.