Working in Ottawa today --Auditory challenged swan

In the National Post on page A5 is a brief news article of an Ontario man from Perth South that was sentenced to 7 days, fined $1000, 60 hour community service and 2 years probation for killing a mute swan.

Now when I read that my first thought was, how did he know it was mute, had he spoke to it and the swan had not replied which caused feeling of being snubbed, leading to ire, rage and ultimately the murder?

(I realize that murder is a legal term reserved for the illegal killing of a human, but grant me some poetic licence here)

And then I wondered how the authorities were aware of the swan's auditory communicatively challenged state, was there a registry for this sort of thing?

But.. as I continued reading, the article explained that "the mute swan is less vocal than other members of its family.."

Ah!  "is less" not "was less", the mute swan refers not to the individual swan that was killed but to a species or sub-species of swan.  Isn't that what capital 'M's are for?

(Yes, while complaining about another writer's syntax I ended a sentence with a preposition, again, grant me some poetic licence)

Have a good day, and leave the swans alone.

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld -- Envoyé de mon sans fil portatif BlackBerry