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Listen to this article<\/p>\n
Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n
What started with a call about an injured adult swan a couple of weeks prior spiralled into a series of calls to the Thunderbird Raptor Rescue in Thunder Bay, Ont., to care for eight orphan baby swans, or cygnets, found across northwestern Ontario.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving a swan is new for me because, as most people know, I do raptors and I do try to help out with other situations as I can, but I do not have my federal permit as of yet,\u201d said Jenn Salo, the city\u2019s authorized wildlife custodian, who noted that she was working on getting the permit.<\/p>\n
With the aid of North Star Air and Canadian Wings of Rescue, an affiliated organization, the adult swan and, later, most of the cygnets were flown into the city from Sioux Lookout, Dryden and Fort Frances.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was super stressful for me to try to keep these things alive and I was pretty much on swan babysitting duty 24\/7 to make sure that they were okay, that they stayed out of danger, that they didn\u2019t get hurt (and) that they were eating enough,\u201d Salo said.<\/p>\n
Unlike raptors, which she says are pretty straightforward to feed, Salo explained that the swans needed pond vegetation, proper vitamins and not too much protein.<\/p>\n
However, with the loss of the adult swan and three of the cygnets to an unidentified illness, the rescue decided to transport the remaining five cygnets south, directly to \u200bTrumpeter Swan Conservation Ontario for specialized care, rather than Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge, as originally planned.<\/p>\n
Salo said she felt confident they would get the \u201cbest care possible\u201d at a place experienced specifically in swans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s obviously something going on with the swans if there\u2019s orphaned babies everywhere,\u201d Salo said.<\/p>\n
It may be normal to find one or two swans here and there over the years, Salo said, but having a group of cygnets and an adult swan succumb to illness was \u201cvery strange.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she suspected West Nile Virus was the cause of the illness, since one cygnet from Dryden developed neurological issues and had to be euthanized, Salo could not confirm it because she was not familiar with how it presents in waterfowl, as opposed to raptors.<\/p>\n
Until the rescue can test some of the dead swans, she said, they will not know the cause.<\/p>\n
A \u201cbig brood of cygnets over the summer\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times with neurological issues, as she described to me, unfortunately, a necropsy, there isn\u2019t really a specific cause found,\u201d said Kyna Intini, who volunteers as a licensed wildlife rehabilitator for Trumpeter Swan Conservation Ontario.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Intini \u2014 also the charity\u2019s master bander for its banding and tagging program \u2014 said the cygnets that made it down to the charity seemed to be currently doing \u201cpretty good.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784037851_186_default.jpg\")
The remaining five cygnets swim with an artificial adult swan at the Trumpeter Swan Conservation Ontario. (Courtesy of Kyna Intini, who volunteers as a licensed wildlife rehabilitator for Trumpeter Swan Conservation Ontario.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are a little bit behind a lot of our broods down here around (the) Lake Ontario area,\u201d Intini said.<\/p>\n
Eventually, she said they will be released back into the wild once they\u2019re ready to fly, usually in the fall, around the end of September and into October.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a common summer occurrence for me that I have cygnets, that I raise them and then I release them. So that\u2019s not too much different, but it is pretty cool that they were flown down from so far north,\u201d Intini said, noting her slight excitement about their release.<\/p>\n
Injured swans in the wild<\/p>\n
For people who may find an injured swan, Salo encourages them to reach out to her rescue first before they start feeding it food that may not be species-appropriate and also not to put the swan with domestic animals, as they don\u2019t know what is currently killing all the swans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it is something like bird flu, then it is something that can pass on to a domestic fox. So we want to be very careful and conscientious when we find injured or orphaned wildlife because you don\u2019t know what kind of viruses they could be carrying,\u201d Salo said.<\/p>\n
Contact the wildlife rehabilitator at the nearest location, Salo said, so they can try to get the animal to the proper centre it needs to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-801418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801418","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=801418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}