There is a bright side tho.
By JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 20,11:42 AM ET
BREWSTER, N.Y. - Six baby swans, orphaned in their eggs when their nesting parents were slaughtered in a New York City park, pecked their way into a well-protected life at a suburban teaching farm.
The last two cygnets hatched overnight, joining four siblings born Thursday in an incubator at Green Chimneys, a farm and wildlife conservation center where needy animals are used in therapy for troubled children.
"We're six for six," said a beaming Paul Kupchok, who heads the wildlife program. "We'd like to have this end up being a happy story."
On Friday morning he moved the peeping babies into a glass-fronted brooder, with water and food — shredded spinach, kale and asparagus — and a heat lamp. In 10 days or so, they will probably move to an outdoor pen with a small pond.
The births added a bittersweet chapter to the tale of the adult mute swans, found beaten and stabbed to death May 5. Nearby was the nest with six eggs.
No arrests have been made, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Kupchok said the ASPCA called him the day after the killings were discovered and asked if he had any experience raising swans from eggs.
"I told them I hadn't done swans, but I have done chickens and ducklings and goslings and I said I was willing to help," he said. "It's part of our mission to help injured, orphaned or distressed animals."
He wasn't at all sure he'd be successful.
"We didn't know how long the eggs had been uncovered," he said. "I didn't tell the kids about it right away because I didn't want them to be disappointed. But a candler came up from the Bronx Zoo a few days later and held the eggs up to a light, and he could tell they were all alive."
So the big beige swan eggs stayed in their incubator in Kupchok's office — along with some chicken eggs and Peking duck eggs. Kupchok faithfully turned them twice a day for even heating, and on Wednesday he heard some faint peeping inside the shells. When he got to work at 7 a.m. Thursday, the fluffy gray-and-white firstborn was out. Cygnet No. 2 soon followed, No. 3 broke out just before noon and No. 4 emerged at about 4 p.m.
There will be no cute names for these birds, because "we try to teach the children that wildlife belongs in the wild and they aren't pets," Kupchok said. He said he hoped they would be healthy enough to release in a few months.
Because they are mute swans, the incessant peeping that filled the incubator Thursday will be the extent of their noisemaking.
"No trumpeting for these guys," Kupchok said. "What you're hearing now is as much as you're going to get."
The swans are known to be fierce defenders of their territory and their nests, and Kupchok said the slain birds must have fought furiously as they were being killed.
"I only wish that some kid who had been to Green Chimneys had been there that day," he said. "He would have talked those killers out of it."
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On the Net:
http://www.greenchimneys.org