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Meet Romeo

Meet Romeo. While on his own, Romeo isn’t much of a problem, if allowed to grow in numbers, Romeo and his kind could become the next environmental nightmare.

Romeo lives a quiet life by a pond on Carriage Crossing Lane just off of West Friendly Avenue in Greensboro, North Carolina. As a few of you have already guessed, Romeo is a non-native Black Swan whose origins date back to Australia where Black Swans are the predominant species of swan. Romeo was brought here along with his now-deceased mate, Juliet-- who died while laying eggs-- to rid the pond of those pesky Canadian Geese. You see, Black Swans are twice the size of Canadian Geese, and really don’t like geese of any kind.

Black Swans grow to be four-feet long, weigh 11 - 20 pounds, and have a six-foot wingspan, making them one of the larger birds in the world. Black Swans are very aggressive and will even attack people and pets if you wander too close. Romeo was less than happy with my moving-in to take his picture and expressed his displeasure towards me the entire time I was visiting.

Romeo prefers to eat aquatic vegetation, small fish, and grass, but if hungry enough, and given the opportunity, Romeo will eat garden vegetables, flowers, picnic lunches, and raid paddocks where livestock feed is stored.

Black Swans build their huge nests on piles of sticks and grass they place in the shallow waters of the ponds on which they live. Rather than nest alone like most birds, Black Swans prefer to nest in colonies, often growing in numbers to the point that there’s not enough food in the ponds to support them. In New Zealand, where Black Swans were introduced almost a century ago, they are considered a far worse pest than the Canadian Geese they were supposed to drive away. The New Zealand Fish and Game Commission now allows hunting of large numbers of Black Swans, sometimes even in public parks as their numbers are so out of hand. In most parts of North Carolina, swans have no predators to keep their numbers low.

The state of Florida is also very concerned with their introduced Black Swan population.

For those of you who consider Canadian Geese to be a problem, consider a population explosion of a bird species with all the same nasty habits of Geese, twice the appetite, and twice the size-- does that seem like a solution to you?

Another non-native bird, the Mute Swan, was introduced to the United States from Europe over a century ago. Today, in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay alone, there are over 3,600 Mute Swans. These Mute Swans are destroying the aquatic plants, wrecking the nesting areas of many native species, and helping to ruin both the commercial and sport fishing industries of the bay by wiping out the feeder fish. The United States Fish and Wildlife Commission estimates that of the over 17,000 Mute Swans known to exist in the eastern US., over 14,000 birds will have to be destroyed to save our native fish and bird species from extinction.

On his own, Romeo will not be a problem as Black Swans do not migrate, preferring instead to live their lives in the same pond, but in the interest of being environmentally responsible, I’m calling on citizens and community leaders alike to make sure Romeo remains as he is-- alone. If you need to get rid of Canadian Geese, a big Labrador Retriever would probably be a much better choice.