On Wednesday, Jul 9th 2003 at 16:44 -0400, quoth Joel A Feingold: =>I was so curious about Swans and Mass Audubon I sent an email asking what to =>feed them. Below is the response. => =>Joel
Linda, I'm going to answer you directly. I'd like to be very clear about this so that one more Audubon person can go off into the wilderness and spread the good news about what it is that is appropriate to feed to swans, and to allow you to distinguish yourself from other Audubon people who have gotten it wrong: What To Feed To A Swan by Steven W. Orr (copywright) 2003 Nothing. Nada. Gar nichts. Zero. The swans have been eating for a *very* long time before people came along and took pity on them. They do not want Purina Swan Chow. They do not want dry bread. They don't even want bread which is buttered. In fact, the only thing they should eat is the stuff they find at the bottoms of ponds. When you see a swan in the pond, they usually only present they feathered butts to you. That's because their fulltime job is to find food at the bottom of ponds. Nice wet food. The kind that slides easily down those long necks and doesn't make them choke to death. Don't feed them food that is on land because all that does is to teach them to eat food on land. Which is not where they're supposed to find food. Because there are other things on land besides dry food. Things like broken glass and fishing line. Remember: Food at bottom of pond, good. Food on land, BAD. Tell *all* of the rest of your Audubon friends. If you want a pet then go someplace and buy one. But please leave the wild animals alone. All of them. Even the cute ones. Do anything to any wild animals and you're probably doing them harm. Now. I'd *really* like to turn our programming back to the regularly scheduled show. I think that the relationship between Framingham Town Government and The Care and Feeding of Swans has become somewhat strained. No more swan talk or I shall honk at you. => =>-----Original Message----- =>From: Linda Cocca [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] =>Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 4:27 PM =>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] =>Subject: Swans => => => => =>Hi, =>Thank you for you inquiry, but I don't have any information on what to feed =>swans. Neither the Massachusetts =>Division of Fisheries and Wildlife nor Mass Audubon encourage people to feed =>swans. =>They can become dependent on hand-outs and aggressive towards humans when =>food is not provided. => =>The following web page will give you information on the mute swan: =>http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~agene/swan.htm. => =>Kind regards, =>Linda => =>Linda Cocca =>Wildlife Information Line =>781-259-2150 -- steveo at syslang dot net TMMP1 http://frambors.syslang.net/ To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body "unsubscribe frambors" (the subject is ignored).
