All swans are grazers. The birds eat aquatic vegetation as well as habitat vegetation such as rye grass, petunias or other readily available food sources that other grazing animals such as deer, rabbits and cows might forage. While eating this vegetation, they can also ingest fish larvae, frogs and small crustaceans living in the vegetation.

The difference is the amount of vegetation. There is a lot of misrepresentations being made in order to kill Mute Swans which are also native and non-invasive. This misrepresentation is so that the larger Trumpeter Swans can be introduced into habitats for Trophy Waterfowl hunting purposes. But, in fact Mute Swans are actually a Sentinel species in that they alert scientists to harmful microorganisms and the presence of high levels of heavy metals such as copper and lead.

In distributing this misinformation, state and federal wildlife officials state that the Mute Swans are invasive and therefore, detrimental to the habitat because they eat too much vegetation. However, scientists have shown that the Trumpeter Swan cygnets eat twice as much vegetation as the Mute Swans. Yet, wildlife officials continually ignore scientific research in order to continue killing the Mute Swans. Hopefully, you and your classmates can help stop the killing of the Mute Swans, the Internatonal Symbol of World Peace. The Regal Swan