Children Attacked By Swan

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30126, 9 May 1963, Page 6

Children Attacked By Swan

(N.Z. Press Association) 1 OAMARU, May 8. A four-year-old boy, and his sister, aged 15 months, were attacked by one of the black swans in the Oamaru Gardens last Saturday. The boy, Ross Jenkins, lost some skin off his nose, and received bruises on his back. His sister, Kay, was not injured. “It was a very sudden attack,” their mother said. “The children were riding a tricycle past the duck pond, when the swan flew

out of a rose bush, chased the trike and leapt up on the children’s backs. ‘‘The first thing I knew

about it was when I heard Ross screaming. By the time I got up with the trike, the swan had disappeared.” Mrs Jenkins said they had earlier been feeding the ducks, and she had hit one of the swans with a paper bag when it became too “friendly.” “Whether or not the swan remembered this and attacked us later, I could not

say, but otherwise it was an unprovoked attack.” The swans have now been taken from the gardens to a wildlife refuge near the Waitaki river where they will be watched by a farmer in the area.

The swans were presented to the gardens by the Waitaki Acclimatisation Society as cygnets and were raised by the curator, Mr H. T. Beveridge. They are quite tame and answer his call. Rangers had little difficulty in capturing the birds. In December, 1940. a two-year-old girl was drowned in the Oamaru Gardens and a swan suspected of causing her death was destroyed.