Police have appealed for information after a swan was killed and its head removed in a Leeds park.<\/p>\n
The animal was found in Roundhay Park on Monday, close to the lake, a spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police said.<\/p>\n
Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, it is a criminal offence to kill a swan in the UK.<\/p>\n
An RSPCA spokesperson said: “We know how much people love seeing these popular birds in their local community and this incident will be very upsetting for everyone who enjoys coming to this park.”<\/p>\n
They added: “Without seeing the swan’s body it is difficult to say with certainty if this bird’s death is suspicious or the result of other causes, such as natural predation.”<\/p>\n
Some had speculated whether a fox may have been responsible for the swan’s death, but a spokesperson for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said a swan would typically be “too big and strong” for them to kill.<\/p>\n
The RSPCA said it received 22 reports of cruelty in West Yorkshire in summer 2025, when reports reached a five-year high at national level.<\/p>\n
Swans were among the most commonly targeted animals, along with pigeons, corvids, gulls and ducks.<\/p>\n
Police appealed for anyone with information about the swan’s death to get in touch.<\/p>\n
Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds<\/a>, catch up with the latest episode of Look North<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related internet links<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have appealed for information after a swan was killed and its head removed in a Leeds park.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[300612,111,139,69,300610,147,300609,406,300611],"class_list":["post-610151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-leeds-park","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-roundhay-park","tag-science","tag-west-yorkshire-police","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-and-countryside-act"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}