By Seth DuChene
Editor
Enterprise’s Rob Fenwick says he’s not sure if the poacher didn’t know or didn’t care what they were aiming at when they shot and seriously injured a rare trumpeter swan near Verona on the weekend. The damage done, however, was readily apparent.
Fenwick was boating with his wife, Lisa Brady-Fenwick, on Second Depot Lake on Sunday when they spotted the bird. “We noticed it was alone on the lake and as we went to take some pictures we noticed it was bleeding… and very frightened,” Fenwick said in a Facebook post that has since been viewed and shared hundreds of times.
An x-ray of the swan‘s broken wing. (SPWC)
He said he called Napanee’s Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre for some advice in how to get the bird and take it to SPWC. Once the swan was in the boat with its head covered, they eventually transported the bird to the centre for treatment.
It was there, said Fenwick, that he learned that the bird was an endangered trumpeter swan, and one of only about 1,000 of its kind in the province.
According to Leah Birmingham of the SPWC, the bird had one broken wing splinted. “We have been consulting with a wildlife veterinarian from the Guelph area that performs most of our orthopedic procedures,” she said.
As of late Tuesday, Birmingham said the “swan is feisty, very stressed by captivity, and so far not interested in any of the food been have been offering.”
She said that the bird’s best chance for survival is if its wing can be properly mended. “We are hopeful, but guarded at this time,” she said.
In a telephone interview Wednesday, Fenwick said that he hopes this incident serves to remind would-be hunters that, if the target can’t be identified, the shot shouldn’t be taken. He also says he hopes it sheds light on the work done at SPWC, which relies on donations to operate.
Not surprisingly, he also says that hopes the publicity surrounding the swan’s ordeal leads to the arrest of those who injured the bird.
“Hunters respect the sport, the laws and make full use of the game they harvest,” he said on Facebook. “Others just have a sick joy of killing things. A real hunter would never do this, ever.”