Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act it is a crime to kill any native migratory bird without a permit to do so. Now, if it was a resident Canada goose that might be a different story.
Exactly, as long as it’s within the proper dates.
New York State guidelines…
Mute Swans don’t even enter into it (to paraphrase Monty Python).
I’ve never been hunting in my life, so it’s kind of weird and condescending (at me) that I have to look this up for some folks. 
One kid had a hunting license, therefore he/she should really have known better.
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they believed they had got a very large duck,
As far as excuses go, I find that hard to believe. A goose, maybe, but not a duck. Ducks are much smaller and have shorter necks. Also, it’s very rare to find a white goose or duck in the wild. White is usually only domesticated. And that the swan was evidently a bfd to the town, given the press coverage, and it’d be weird if they hadn’t heard about it in school or home at some point.
As @knoxblox notes below, one of the teens had a hunting license. While I can only speak to my experience with family and friends, hunting is cultural, with knowledge handed down from one generation to another. I find it very hard to believe someone didn’t teach the teen with the license the difference between a duck, goose, turkey, pheasant, and other birds they’d like to shoot, but were forbidden to by law.
Shooting a swan thinking it was a duck is kinda like shooting the neighbor’s Doberman thinking it was a raccoon. Possible, but not plausible.
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Is there not a handbook or online reference guide, like they have with the Department of Motor Vehicles? That would make a lot of sense.
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That would make a lot of sense.
Or, say, elementary school when learning to spell and identifying things? Heck, duck, goose, and swan were example pictures / words when my kids were learning the alphabet.
While swans themselves are rare~ish, waterfowl are embedded in our cultural lexicon.
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Christ, what assholes.
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And a longer story with the perp walk and photos. It said the perpetrators were not doing it because they were hungry.
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The Swan
The swan can swim while sitting down.
For pure conceit he takes the crown.
He looks in the mirror over and over,
And claims to have never heard of Pavlova.
From the Daily Fail story:
Manny will be removed from the pond, the mayor said, as there is a chance he can become combative after losing his mate.
Suddenly, I’m thinking of a fitting punishment.
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That reminds me of the time Peter Maxwell Davies was busted for eating swan.
They’ve been reading too much Hans Christian Anderson, and taking it to extremes. Or else that was one heck of an ugly duckling!
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And larks are quite small and not suitable for riding on. /s
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Swans’ tongues in aspic would feed the larger family.
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How in the hell does one confuse a swan for a “big duck”?
I think one doesn’t, really.
ETA: No matter your country of origin, visual differences in species isn’t all that hard to fathom – and a reminder, ONE OF THEM HAD A HUNTING LICENSE.
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Immediate proximity to penalties for swan-killing, I suspect.
Motivated reasoning?
Methinks the guy was not only a swan eater, but also an impostor.
I’m quite sure he has never played with Queen.
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