From the country that brought us Inspector Morse, Miss Marples, and A Touch of Frost, comes a caravan park murder ‘mystery’ that would do justice to an episode of any of them.
In a leafy rural town in the English county of Gloucestershire, accusations of foul play are flying around after a swan that has been terrorising guests at Hope Mill Caravan Park was found dead.
According to media reports, it was one of two huge swans that regularly hissed at trucks, harassed cyclists, chased the postman and even attacked a toddler. The swans were also allegedly responsible for pecking at windows, tearing up lawns and leaving waste on people’s doorsteps.
The swan’s body was found on a riverbank and had no external injuries, prompting rumours it had been poisoned.
A group from the caravan park has previously tried unsuccessfully to get permission to have the swans ‘moved on’. A spokesperson for the Save the Thrupp Swans group which fought that initiative has described the circumstances of the death as “very suspicious”.
The mute swan can weigh as much as 15kg and is one of the heaviest flying birds in the world. It is protected.
Police have been called to the caravan park to investigate the death, and the swan’s body will undergo a post mortem examination.
It is certainly not the first time ‘inconvenient’ birds have caused caravan park controversy. Last November, there was outrage in some quarters when 10 pine trees at Scarness Beach Caravan Park in Hervey Bay were felled so that visitors wouldn’t have to listen to the screeching of the lorikeets which gathered in their branches, or to risk having their rigs ‘bombed’ by bird faeces.
* What’s your verdict on the swan ‘murder’ case?
Unfortunately SOME older grey nomads are intolerant of others, of nature and anything that they feel encroaches on their quality time. It would not surprise me that someone poisoned the swan. As far as removing trees, moving the swans on etc. What a load of hogwash. Its their home not the caravan peoples. If they don’t like then they move on. After all its not their home. They have a mobile home that travels. Give them the heave ho not the wildlife.
Parrot borne diseases including lice and mites can cause serious health problems.
My wife suffered welts all over her body after mountain parrots invaded the park where we were staying, so much so we had to move. We have stayed at that park over the years without issues and it was only this year the parrots turned up in their thousands at nightfall. The stench was overpowering.
As an aside my brother and his wife visited a bird sanctuary on the Gold Coast as part of their honeymoon. His wife contacted a bird borne disease that finished up costing her a kidney.