\n The incident was discovered near a log barrier in the park\u2019s nature area.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Monday, September 21, a West Yorkshire Police spokesperson posted on social media and said: “Sadly a swan has been killed and its head removed in Roundhay Park close to where the log barrier is to keep boats out of the nature area.\n<\/p>\n
\n “This was discovered yesterday if anyone has any information about this incident or even a better time as to when it happened please call 101 and quote 13260536269.”\n<\/p>\n
What social media users suspect<\/p>\n
\n One commenter said: “I’ve been told that certain hunting birds, hawks, falcons and owls just take the head because they like to eat the brain for the nutrition and because its lighter to carry than a whole bird.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Another suggested it could be a fox.\n<\/p>\n
\n One user disputed this, claiming: “For those saying foxes – it is a myth that foxes like to take swans’ heads, in fact its incredibly rare for them to confront adult swans as there’s a high risk of injury to the fox! They prefer smaller prey.”\n<\/p>\n
\n It is not clear how the swan died, whether its head was found alongside its body, or whether the head had been taken away.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is possible the swan died, or was killed, and the head has been scavenged by an animal at a later date.\n<\/p>\n
\n Possibilities include foxes, dogs, mink, otters, crows, gulls, birds of prey, rats and other scavengers.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, a missing head does not prove that a fox killed the swan, as the bird may have died from illness, injury or a collision and been scavenged afterwards.\n<\/p>\n
\n If you find a dead swan, avoid touching it and report it to a local wildlife rescue service or your council.\n<\/p>\n
\n The T&A will provide an update from police should one become available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The incident was discovered near a log barrier in the park\u2019s nature area. On Monday, September 21, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-780732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}