By Monica Kim, in 2014.

"Swans have been a taboo food for hundreds of years, but they've recently become an invasive species. So why not start eating them again?"

https://modernfarmer.com/2014/05/come/

Excerpt:

"...Often served at feasts, roast swan was a favored dish in the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, particularly when skinned and redressed in its feathers and served with a yellow pepper sauce; others preferred to stuff the bird with a series of increasingly smaller birds, in the style of a turducken. Swans have been the property of the Crown since around the twelfth century, but Edward IVs Act Concerning Swans in 1482 clearly defined that ownership. To this day, Queen Elizabeth II participates in the yearly Swan Upping, in which the royal Swan Master counts and marks swans on the Thames, and the kidnapping and eating of swans can be considered a treasonous crime. Great Britains royals are still allowed to eat swan, as are the fellows of St. Johns College of Cambridge, but to the best of our knowledge, they no longer do. Thanks to stories like Leda and the Swan and Lohengrin, the birds appear almost mythical; a restaurant on the Baltic island of Ruegen had swan on their menu for a short time, before protests began and it was swiftly removed.

"In Michigan, however, which has the highest population of mute swans in North America, the creatures are considered pests...

"...mute swans threaten other native birds, such as common loons, black terns, and trumpeter swans, and are also destroying the wetlands where they live. The DNR has set a controversial plan to reduce the population to less than 2,000 by 2030 that involves issuing permits to remove mute swans and their nests from approved properties; a hunting season is not under consideration.

"Regulated hunting, however, might gain approval from chefs like Mario Batali, whose friends in Michigan have hunted the birds before. 'We once ate a swan at Christmas nine or ten years ago,' he told Esquire. 'It was delicious €“ deep red, lean, lightly gamey, moist, and succulent€¦ but Ive never seen swan on a market list.'Â�..."



One idea that DOESN'T get mentioned, somehow, is finding safe ways to steal or weaken the eggs. That wouldn't be too popular either, of course, but when we're talking about protecting the endangered species listed above, the public just might accept it as the lesser evil. (I seem to remember that the way to weaken eggs is to spray the eggshells with some type of natural oil.)

If they could get robots to divert the birds while humans stole the (new) eggs and then turned them into omelets, that might work too. (But the swans might lay more, of course.)


Lenona.