Group of Manitoba wildlife experts, hunters urge public to oppose proposed swan, dove hunts

Six Manitoba hunters and wildlife experts have grouped together to voice their opposition to proposed hunting seasons for two migratory birds in Manitoba, and they're asking other concerned members of the public to join them.

Environment and Climate Change Canada recently suggested hunting seasons for tundra swans and mourning doves across the Prairies in proposed amendments to Canadian migratory bird regulations.

If passed, a tundra swan hunting season could begin in Manitoba as soon as 2028, with 400 permits issued to hunters in the province each year, the proposed amendments say.

But some have raised concerns that tundra swan hunters might accidentally target trumpeter swans, a sensitive species that can't be hunted anywhere in North America.

Those concerns have led a group of six wildlife veterans and hunters from across Manitoba — James Duncan, Murray Gillespie, Doug Langrell, Ted Muir, Barry Verbiwski and Robert Wrigley — to join forces to oppose the proposals.

Ted Muir, a waterfowl hunter and a former wildlife educator with the provincial government, says the two swans are nearly identical, apart from their size.

"The fear is that they will mix in with the tundra swans, which are smaller but almost impossible to distinguish between the two during the hunting season," he told CBC News on Monday.

"It's counterproductive, it's unnecessary and it's unwarranted — it's just completely wrong."

Muir says trumpeter swans used to populate much of central Canada and northwestern parts of the United States before they were decimated by the fur trade, during which their feathers and skins were prized as they could be made into clothing and quills.

The swans' population numbers have grown thanks to legal protections in Canada and the U.S. for over a century, and they've begun to colonize parts of Manitoba in the last decade, he said.

The Canadian Wildlife Service, a branch of Environment and Climate Change Canada, previously told CBC News that if 400 tundra swan hunting permits were issued in Manitoba each year, about three trumpeter swans are estimated to be accidentally killed.

But it's up to hunters to be able to distinguish between the two swans, the wildlife service said.

For Muir, that's a high risk not worth taking, and he believes hunters "absolutely will not be able to make those distinctions."

"Most people won't know the difference until the bird is on the ground and it's too late."