BBC Cambridgeshire Swan butchery

[nightshade]

Just a reminder to keep an eye on our wildlife, some people just see free food
BBC - Angler discovers 14 swan bodies 'gutted of meat'.

[Littlesparrow]

I wonder why the police thought the birds had flown into a pylon, they wouldn't have had bits missing? Ducks and swans are an easy target if they are use to being fed by humans, sad.

[The Woodman]

Over the years I have come across numbers of dead birds under overhead power lines, ducks, geese, herons, etc. The majority of these had been stripped of flesh by scavengers.

On two occassions I have seen sawns hit powerlines, the first time two birds were killed instantly, the second time I picked up the live bird and eventually the RSPCA took it away saying that it would probably die due to the internal organs being "cooked" by the electricity. The weird thing was that I could see the bird heading for the wires and could do nothing about it. The blue flash was impressive.

None of the birds bore any marks, external burns or damage. The pair of birds killed were local siblings as I found out from returning the leg rings. Perhaps this why the feet were cut off - either to recover the rings or for some tasty oriental snack.

Fourteen birds does seem an unusually high number for a mortality of this kind. One assumes that there were overhead power lines in the immediate vicinity from the police comment.

[Harold Smith]

As far as I know to kill a swan for food or any other reason is a criminal offence. I would have thought that the Police would arrange for a post mortem to be carried out on the remains to determine if a crime had been committed. It is difficult to believe that all 14 swans died of exactly the same injuries by colliding with a power line.

Harold.

[RKB]

These look like natural scavenging to me. I found one exactly the same last week, and the pattern of complete wings attached to the sternum by the coracoid is absolutely typical of predation.scavenging, but very atypical of people. Also, the fact that some were in hedges is spot on for scavengers (carried there by Buzzards).

I cannot imagine anyone de-fleshing a swan in this way, it would be incredibly awkward and also pretty pointless - people cut off the wings, head and feet and take the body home. I've never heard of anyone doing this with any bird. t the very least they'd 'crown' it and take the breast flesh off attached to the sternum.

Why there are so many there is open to question - maybe they'd been depostied there by the river after dying upsteam during the icy spell? Maybe they've died after hitting wires en masse or in dribs and drabs (attracted in by other dead swans acting as decoys?). But I'd put humans at the bottom of the list.

[STYRBJORN]

Taking it as read that if they were killed by humans they would have been shot, I cannot credit that there would have been no signs of wounding on the wings and remaining body parts. Also, it would take time to kill 14+ birds as they would need to be killed individually. The shooter would be lucky to get two before the rest flew away.

[thebeard]

definately a collision, i saw one exactly the same last week, from across the river. Pylons traverse a large floodplain which is grazed by cattle situated next to the river trent near radcliffe. Swan collisions are frequent here, sadly.