Residents in Stratford, Ont., were being asked to stay on the lookout Wednesday as five of the city\u2019s iconic swans remained at large.<\/p>\n
What started as a typical day for Quin Malott, Stratford\u2019s parks and forestry manager, two weeks ago quickly turned into a wild swan chase.<\/p>\n
During Malott\u2019s usual venture along Lake Victoria, where he goes daily to feed the swans, he noticed that three of the six he usually saw swimming in the city\u2019s centre were missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we thought, you know, they\u2019re probably down on the other side by the golf course or what have you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Not thinking much of it, Malott left the area. But when he returned the next day, all six were missing, leaving no trace \u2014 not even feathers.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we started to do our search,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Despite days of searching along the river and checking out stormwater retention ponds, the missing swans were not found in their usual homes.<\/p>\n
The dilemma has been ruffling feathers among residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s concerning for a lot of people,\u201d said Malott. \u201cWe just want to get them back to the river.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swans form a unique part of Stratford and add to the city\u2019s allure, Malott said, adding that they are connected to the park system and go hand-in-hand with the city\u2019s iconic theatre festival. There are currently 18 birds in the flock, he added.<\/p>\n
Though Malott doesn\u2019t know if any of the birds were taken, he isn\u2019t ruling the idea out as they\u2019ve become accustomed to being fed by humans.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would just have to shake a can of corn and then they would all come to somebody. So I\u2019m not going to say that they were taken, but it\u2019s definitely a possibility,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The birds may also still be out there hiding, Malott said, adding that there are many areas along the lake where visibility is reduced due to factors such as tall grass.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just seems strange that we don\u2019t have any sign of it,\u201d Mallott said, adding it\u2019s also possible the birds\u2019 wings weren\u2019t altered properly to prevent flight and they may have flown away.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the week, Malott said dozens of Stratford residents called to report that they had spotted one of the fugitive birds caught in a stormwater retention pond in the city\u2019s north end.<\/p>\n
There are plans to recover the lost bird on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just had to feed it up a little. It\u2019s a bit timid right now, so we\u2019re going to feed it up for a few days so we can get close enough to catch it,\u201d Malott said.<\/p>\n
He said he hopes the appeal to the public will help some of the other birds find their way home, especially since the city doesn\u2019t use tracking devices on them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents in Stratford, Ont., were being asked to stay on the lookout Wednesday as five of the city\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-102770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}