Jeff took one of the dogs for a walk by his parents beach cottage yesterday. He was walking near the woods and Sydnee started barking and going crazy. Not too far away sat a swan stuck in a snow drift. It made no effort to get away and had snow and ice on it's back. Jeff drove Sydnee back to the house and asked me what he should do. I told him maybe he should go back and see if it looks injured and if not then try to get it to go back towards the beach.



He went back and it still made no effort to get away. He picked it up and walked it back down to the beach. He had some dog biscuits in his coat so he crumbled them up and the swan ate it out of his hands. It still made no effort to get away.



Jeff came back to the house again and was pacing around wondering what to do. He called our DNR officer at home (because by now it was after 5pm and no one was in the office) and he wasn't home. So I suggested he called the sheriff's dept. and ask to get ahold of the DNR officer on call. They suggested he call the Report All Poaching hot line which he did. They said sorry, nothing we can do, let nature take it's course. They must have had second thoughts and called someone else because a few minutes later another DNR officer called our house and said to go back and get it and they would pick it up in the morning and take it to a wild life rehab place 2 hours west of us.



So by now it's dark and Jeff went back down there and found the swan sitting exactly where he left it. Once again it made no effort to escape. Jeff picked it up and carried to the truck, put it in one of the dog crates he took with him and brought it home. The swan spent the night in our basement in the crate. The DNR officer thought for sure it would be dead by morning because it was in so much distress that it didn't bother to try to run away but amazingly enough it ate some bread we gave it and even drank some water so I was pretty sure it would live through the night.



This morning the DNR officer picked it up and took it to the rehab place. I was kind of hoping they would leave us a phone number we could call to check up on it but I wasn't up at 7am when they came and Jeff didn't bother to ask.



Anyway, just thought I'd share a long, crazy swan story.

I just wanted to add that I didn't take any pics of it because I didn't want to stress it out more than it already was. Jeff did have his video camera with him on the intial encounter and if I ever figure out how to upload it here, I'll post it.

Scarlette, I'm glad that you were able to help the swan. And I'm really glad that the officers changed their minds and took it to a rehab facility. Hopefully the swan will be able to make a complete comeback.

Would you post again if you get an update on the bird? I'd really like to know what happens.

Poor swan! I'm glad you all could help it out.

Wow! Can't wait to see the video. You have an awesome husband. That was really cool that he helped that Swan. You have wild Swans?

Jeff tracked down the phone number to the rehab place and they said federal law prevents them from taking in common swans because they compete with the endangered Trumpeter Swans so now we have no idea where they took it. Jeff is going to try to get the number to the DNR officer that picked it up and see if they took it to another rehab place downstate.