cripple'd swan?

[loc9fisher]

last waterfowl season (i'd say late november) i was hunting on a large pond in otsego, near elk river. most of the pond was frozen except for a small hole that was being kept open by a dozen or 2 swans during the day, and a couple more dozen geese at night.

as i would get out to this open water, which is another strange story in itself, i would scare up all the geese. they would fly away well before sunrise, but what made me curious was that there were 3 swans that wouldn't leave. as the morning lingered on, more and more swans would come to this pond, and as i didn't shoot at anything that morning they stayed until i had picked up and started to head back across the frozen pond. thats when it got strange.

paddling back across, all the swans got spooked except for the original 3. they stayed as long as they could until i got to close and 2 of them got up and flew away. as i was looking at the last one closely, it had a wierd kink in its neck. it never tried to fly, maybe it couldn't, but it could swim around just fine.

to make a long story longer, i didn't know what to do. i'd never seen anything like that before, being a protected bird, and i was nervous that if i called the DNR they might think i did something to it(even though i didn't). anyway, i ended up call TIP and reporting the swan, but it didn't matter because when the pond finally froze up a day or 3 later, there was this white feathery clump frozen into the lake.

i guess i'm wondering was there anything else i could have done? anyone else i should have called? thanks for any info...........loc9

[This message has been edited by loc9fisher (edited 07-15-2003).]

[Kostoglotov]

I would call the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota. They handle all kinds of issues like this. They rehab'd 2 or three swans last year.

Worst case they would have contacted the DNR