Bourne Comment

GOODBYE TO OUR BLACK SWANS

If by chance you take the public path across the Wellhead Gardens to St Peter’s Pool, you may notice that the black swans that once inhabited this place have now turned white, much to the dismay of the many visitors who frequent this place.

This dramatic change has been brought about not by an avian miracle of Mother Nature but because the trustees of Bourne United Charities who administer the park appear to have endorsed the opinion of the few who have deemed it to be an unsuitable even dangerous environment for these much loved birds.

Those who are familiar with St Peter’s Pool will know that the black swans (Cygnus atratus), which are indigenous to the south west regions of Australia and Tasmania, were here for fifteen years but disappeared last summer and the vacant habitat has now been taken over by white or mute swans (Cygnus olor) which are more at home in Europe and Asia and therefore considered to be our native species.

This change has puzzled many visitors to the park because the black swans had become a firm favourite, especially with children who took great delight in bringing them daily treats of bread and other tasty morsels and as a result they became so tame that they swam over to meet anyone who arrived on the bank with a likely looking bag, usually with their family close behind.

These handsome birds have dark, curly plumage, bright red bills and white wing feathers and one appears on the armorial standard of Western Australia where the Dutch discovered it in 1697. They took it to Batavia and thence to Europe where the existence of a black swan was regarded with amazement. Like the mute swan, it has been successfully domesticated and raised in captivity and the first pair to arrive in Bourne was a gift from the Wildfowl Trust in 1999 when a shelter was made on the side of the pool where they later produced a number of cygnets each spring.

Unfortunately, the original pair are now dead, one killed by vandals early in 2007 and another by a fox, but their descendants remained in residence until the summer of 2011 when St Peter's Pool dried up completely because of prolonged drought conditions and all wildlife suffered as a result.

But in May 2012, another pair of black swans was introduced to the pool after being bought with money donated by the Bourne Business Chamber. By then, the dry spell had eased and the water level was back to normal after a prolonged period of heavy rain. The swans came from UK Waterfowl, a breeding farm based at Hanworth in Norfolk, and were transported to Bourne by members of the chamber. The birds were left in a holding pen and then released on to the pool after three days once they had become familiar with their new surroundings.

In the years that followed their arrival, the black swans became an icon for Bourne, having been featured on the front page of the town guide and frequently in the local newspapers and on Internet web sites which are read around the world and so it is disappointing to visit St Peter’s Pool and find them gone, even though we have such graceful replacements.

This change is directly due to the black swans falling prey to predators, whether foxes, dogs or vandals, the problem being that the swans could not evade attack because their wings had been pinioned to prevent flying with the result that they could not escape when danger threatened.

The deaths became so frequent among both cygnets and adult birds that a petition was launched calling on Bourne United Charities to stop buying more black swans only to be killed again. “They have no protection from predators because their wings are clipped”, wrote Linda Bates, of Wexford Close, Bourne, in a letter to The Local newspaper (11th April 2014). “We cannot begin to imagine the pain and terror these beautiful creatures endured while being savaged.”

Unfortunately, pinioning is a necessary precaution required by law for all black swans in this country, as outlined by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in 2005 citing new government regulations that required anyone keeping non-native species to ensure that they did not escape to prevent them from breeding in the wild.

They are, therefore, in danger wherever they live in this country and it is impossible to guard against all eventualities in life, especially when it involves animals and birds in a natural environment. But Trevor Hollinshead, speaking for Bourne United Charities, told The Local newspaper (25th April 2014) that “the trustees had taken note of public opinion” and had stopped an order for two new swans. He added: “We will wait and find out what the people really want.”

The trustees now appear to have made their decision even though the petition contained a mere 40 signatures from a town with a population in excess of 15,000 when it would have been more satisfactory to find out what the majority really thought about ending their stay and not taking a decision based on the representation of a vociferous few. Yet one year on and there has been no further public statement and so we may assume that the tacit agreement of the trustees is that there will be no more black swans and as a result, nature has been left to take its course with the result that the white swans have taken over St Peter’s Pool.

The current restrictions governing the keeping of black swans apply equally throughout the United Kingdom and we know of no other case where they are being rejected because of it. Not that we have large numbers of them in England where the population is not considered to be self-sustaining and so the species is not afforded admission to the official British List of British Birds maintained by the British Ornithologists’ Union. Only a few breeding pairs are recorded in the UK although there is a colony of black swans at Dawlish, Devon, that has become so well associated with the town that the bird has been their emblem for forty years, a gesture that is now certainly lost to Bourne while the decision to end their stay may well have a similar effect on the keeping of black swans in other parts of the country.

The pinioning of black swans is therefore the nub of the present problem, a recent development that is now threatening to curb their very presence in this country because we do have a duty of care over the wildlife we introduce and if restrictions such as this are imposed then we must accept the consequences.

As a result the black swans at St Peter’s Pool have been replaced by the white swans and they are, of course, most welcome and we hope to enjoy their presence in the future but it will never be quite the same as it was in the past.

After all, white swans are not newcomers to St Peter’s Pool and are perhaps reclaiming their old territory because they were a familiar sight here in Edwardian times and well into the 20th century when this stretch of water was maintained as a local beauty spot, lovingly cared for as a favourite weekend walk by people dressed in their Sunday best, the place to be and be seen. Photographs from the period show a beautifully kept pleasant and attractive amenity with a wooden walkway that has long since disappeared and mute swans gliding gracefully across the clear blue water.

Nevertheless, this ancient site remains a most popular one and we are lucky to have it as an attraction for visitors and for a wide variety of water birds although it is a sad loss to see the disappearance of our much loved black swans that enjoyed such popularity for so many years. Public relations are not a strong point with Bourne United Charities but a statement from the trustees confirming their policy of exclusion might be appropriate in this case to let the town know officially that there is no possibility of ever having them back.

Note: This article was published by the Bourne web site on 16th May 2015