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Advocates for migratory birds are questioning whether Maryland's controversial program to reduce the mute swan population violates the state's own animal cruelty laws.

The program received the go-ahead Monday from John R. Griffin, the secretary of the state Department of Natural Resources, about three weeks after an advisory group voted 10-2 to continue with the DNR's current plan.

The advisory group's majority report called mute swans an "environmental hazard." DNR should, it read, "reduce the mute swan population to as low a level as can be achieved."

To do so, DNR uses lethal and nonlethal means, said Jonathan McKnight, associate director for habitat conservation. As a nonlethal method, DNR employees in the spring coat mute swan eggs with corn oil. The oil prevents respiration of the eggs, so they don't develop, he said.

As a lethal method, specially trained DNR staff either shoot the swans or break their necks, McKnight said.

But in a letter to Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D), an animal advocate stated that the neck-breaking method includes rounding up swans, placing them in sacks and beating them before cutting off their necks with an instrument resembling bolt cutters.

The letter is from Eric Jaffe, a Washington attorney representing the Migratory Bird Treaty Act Advocates. Such treatment, Jaffe's letter asserts, violates a state law prohibiting animal cruelty.

Raquel Guillory, a Gansler spokeswoman, said the office will respond.

McKnight said veterinarian associations approved DNR's methods.

According to DNR, mute swans were introduced into the Chesapeake in 1962, and the population had grown so large that it crowded out native, migratory waterfowl from habitat, while consuming the vegetation that feeds other species.

But John Grandy, senior vice president for wildlife with the Humane Society of the United States, said mute swans were listed in reports 100 years old.

"When do they get their green card?" Grandy said.

The population of the mute swans had exceeded 4,000. DNR's efforts have reduced the population to about 500.

"To suggest that fewer than 500 swans are having a meaningful impact on the Bay is scientifically absurd," Grandy said.

But mute swans don't migrate. They remain in the area year-round when other waterfowl pass through the Chesapeake region only in the winter, McKnight said.

They damage restoration sites or take over the critical nesting habitat of native species, McKnight said.

Grandy, who served on the advisory committee, opposed continuing the mute swan plan, as did E. Joseph Lamp, a member of the Maryland Wildlife Advisory Commission.

Another opponent of the effort is Jane Ann S. Wilder of Montgomery Village, who believes Griffin decided to proceed with the majority report weeks ago.

"He decided before the ink was dry to go with the majority and kill the swans," she said. "This agency hates swans. They hate them."

Montgomery Village had its own resident mute swan at Lake Whetstone, until it was struck and killed by an unknown motorist in 2007.