Wounded swan recovering after blast from shotgun
EVERETT, Wash. - A female trumpeter swan is being treated at a Snohomish County wildlife center after it was found wandering in a store parking lot with buckshot wounds from a shotgun blast.
Passers-by called the Sarvey Wildlife Care Center in Arlington on Thursday morning after seeing the injured swan walking outside the pharmacy drive-thru at a Fred Meyers store in Silver Lake. The callers said the large bird was bleeding and appeared to be in distress.
Sarvey staff members went to the store and brought the swan back to the wildlife center.
An examination found buckshot embedded in the swan's chest muscles. Treatment was begun and it's possible the bird could require surgery, a Sarvey spokesperson said.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the state Department of Fish and Wildlife at 425-775-1311.
Passers-by called the Sarvey Wildlife Care Center in Arlington on Thursday morning after seeing the injured swan walking outside the pharmacy drive-thru at a Fred Meyers store in Silver Lake. The callers said the large bird was bleeding and appeared to be in distress.
Sarvey staff members went to the store and brought the swan back to the wildlife center.
An examination found buckshot embedded in the swan's chest muscles. Treatment was begun and it's possible the bird could require surgery, a Sarvey spokesperson said.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the state Department of Fish and Wildlife at 425-775-1311.
So beautiful. Why would anyone want to shoot one? I'm glad there were people willing to help. Sometimes it astounds me how others are just willing to keeping walking by.
Somebody shooting at geese and hit this swan instead?
I would suspect that it was a waterfowl hunter who mistook the swan for a snow goose. Not a very good hunter since he or she violated several key elements in ethical hunting, such as target identification and probalby distance estimation, but I wouldn't think that it was soemthing that would generate the sort of commentary that I've seen on this article. That, itself, is pretty sad.
Heartbreaking. Â Some coward with a gun tries to destroy something so beautiful and peaceful. It's as if they're incapable of appreciating anything.. or completely devoid of empathy at all. Â So, I've lived in a lot of other places. Can someone explain to me why so many useless pieces of trash live in the Puget Sound area? Â I mean there are nice people, obviously, but I have never been in an area with so many ignorant, violent, backwoods, cruel, idiots, before. Â Is it lack of Vitamin D? Inbreeding?Â
@DT IThe real reason there are so many of these is because the WSDFW has not set up an open season on this trash. Last year our group came upon three guys poaching, if we only had our poacher tag! Instead we called the Poacher Hotline & Kittitas Sheriff. Interestingly the WSP showed up first.Â
What a beautiful bird. It's just beyond me why anyone would shoot it.
 @Jatok You've obviously never met one up close. Pretty as they may be, trumpeters are MEAN!Â
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Still, they're just territorial mostly, not to mention relatively harmless. They can smack you with their wings and bite but without teeth it's not going to kill anyone. Not saying this was right but I can guess at the motivation for doing it...
@Root Please I usually stay my distance from wildlife because it's usually when someone insists on invading their space that they get ugly....not always but most of the time.
 @Root Please  @Jatok If you're close enough to a trumpeter swan, you're doing something wrong.  There is zero escuse to shoot a swan. Zero. ANd to be far enough from it to get a shotgun shot off, means that you're not being harmed in any way. No, I'm sure it's another drunk moron with a gun.  I hear them at night in my area, shooting things after drinking all night. I swear I hear banjo music in the distance.
@DT @Root Please Couldn't agree more. Some people just injoy killing and harming critters and if you don't invade their space they usually don't cause you any problems.
 @DT  @Jatok I'm not saying it was right for someone to shoot it, just taking a stab at guessing their motivation.
 @DT  @Root Please  @Jatok Unlike a handgun or a rifle, a shotgun is a spread shot. As in it is like a bunch of ball bearings which spread out once fired. So it is quite possible that while the hunter may not be shooting a swan. Him/her being a poor shot may have resulted in the swan catching one of the shots.
@DT @Root Please @Jatok ...wutz rong wif banjos? My unkledad and me playz um reelly gud.
@Root Please @Jatok Even without teeth they can (& do) draw blood!
I agree, it wasn't right to shoot it, though perhaps it was an accident. Maybe someone was actually shooting at a duck or some other legally hunted bird & the swan was too close.
Hopefully it will completely recover & be release back into the wild, at an appropriate time of year.
The homegrown gutless wonders and their toys, may the fleas of a thousand camels infest their every orifice until the end of time.
inshallah
If you shoot something*, at least have the common courtesy to finish the job.
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*I do not advocate the shooting of trumpeter swans, however testy they may be.
 @UrsusArctos Against both Fed and state law to kill.
 @Chico  @UrsusArctos However, it is cruel to shoot and wound an animal and just leave them there to suffer.  I'd rather they just kill the poor thing so it does not suffer.
Which is why I do not advocate it.
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The a**hole who shot the swan needs to be shot in the a** and then let him wonder around with buckshot in there
 @Larry*X*K Kind of amusing how you can point out on another person's comment, on another story, that they misused their and there but then you go ahead and mix up wonder and wander. Just saying... :)
 @PrairieDawn good catch
I know buckshot is the popular term, but more than likely this was some type of smaller shot size, most likely a larger type of waterfowl shot.
 @Ron Burgandy Exactly! A buck shot if she was indeed hit by it would have killed it. Most probably a bird shot.
 @Ron Burgandy commonly known as...birdshot? It could have been buck shot from a fair distance, and only a few pellets.