Jet Ski Operator May Have Deliberately Killed Swan: Officials

The epitome of grace, swans can be jerks, especially when their mates and cygnets are threatened.

Popular myth holds that their wings are strong enough to snap human bones, though it’s closer to the truth to describe the large birds — up to 28 pounds with a wingspan of close to 8 feet — as legendary, dauntless protectors of their nests.

In fact, mute swans — the type that wildlife officials say may have been deliberately killed by a jet skier on a Michigan lake in mid-June — are one of the world's most aggressive waterfowl species, especially during nesting and brood-rearing, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

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They generally make life miserable for native breeding waterfowl, including trumpeter swans, which are protected species in Michigan, as well as Canada geese, ducks, common loons and black terns. Renegade mute swans invade by attacking, injuring and even killing other birds and taking over their breeding habitat, the DNR said.

The DNR says it routinely takes reports from people who have been attacked by swans swimming close to the shore.

Swan attacks aren't always minor, either.

A man drowned after a charging swan capsized his kayak outside of Chicago in 2012. Witnesses said he tried to swim ashore, but one of the swans blocked him, according to a BBC report.

Even so, you have to wonder what a mute swan swimming on Half Moon Lake near Casnovia ever did to deserve being hit and killed by a jet ski on June 11.

Conservation officers think the attack was deliberate, and a 49-year-old Muskegon County man could be charged with illegally killing a mute swan, WZZM-TV reports.

That wasn’t the first brush with death for the adult male swan, half of a mating pair that hatches a family on the lake every spring. Last year, the same bird was nursed back to health by local residents after someone shot him with an arrow. The swan had lived on the lake for about 19 years.

Witnesses said the driver of the jet ski may not have been able to avoid the bird.

“The jet ski driver was coming in to park and let his granddaughter off and the swan came right at him and he didn't have a chance to turn away,” Fred Clingen told WZZM. “It hit the front of the jet ski and went under.”

However, Half Moon Lake resident Iesa Carlson told the TV station that people have antagonized the swan.
“I’ve seen jet skis do circles around him, I’ve seen people throw rocks at him,” said Carlson, who has lived at the lake as long as the swan.

In 2012, a Fruitport man pleaded no contest — a plea that doesn’t admit guilt, but is treated as a guilty plea in sentencing — to charges filed in the Memorial Day 2011 killing of a mute swan in front of horrified children and other spectators attending Fruitport’s Old-Fashioned Days.

The man was also on a jet ski, and witnesses said he was harassing the bird by rapidly circling it. However, the man maintained the male swan was aggressively attacking him and his family as it defended its mate and cygnets.

Image credit: Andy Rogers via Flickr / Creative Commons