Crumbs! Now a ban on giving bread to swans
It was once an innocent pastime, bringing families closer to nature on weekend strolls in the park.
But feeding ducks and swans a loaf may soon become taboo amid moves to ‘ban the bread’.
the custodians of one stately home are clamping down on visitors giving bread – which they claim is not healthy for birds – as part of a nationwide campaign to end the tradition.
Suzanna Atkinson, of Haddo House, near tarves, Aberdeenshire, said: ‘Bread has very little nutritional value for birds, so although they love to eat it – just as kids like to eat sweeties – it doesn’t help them to flourish.
‘It also causes problems with the water. this years’ dry weather encouraged hundreds of geese to rehome at Haddo and that means thousands of droppings.
‘Feeding them bread makes them defecate even more than normal, while feeding them seeds makes their waste less prolific.’
She warned that the build-up of waste leads to algae growth, which ‘is not only bad for all the creatures that live in the lake, but the spores can get into the birds’ lungs and kill them’.
Haddo House sells bird seed and has put up signs encouraging visitors to feed the birds seeds, peas, sweetcorn, lettuce and oats. But the move has ruffled some feathers, with one expert claiming the Ban the Bread campaign is misguided.
Royal Swan Marker David Barber, who carries out a ceremonial census – Swan Upping – on the thames each year, said: ‘the swans have come to rely on us, I’m afraid.
‘Rightly or wrongly, that’s what’s happened. We’ve fed them for hundreds of years and you just cannot stop doing that overnight.
‘It’s cruel. Swans are starving. there are a lot of swans that are lightweight now.’
Mr Barber said he was unaware of any cases of swans dying from algae spores, despite working with the birds for 30 years.
His annual census is part of an ancient tradition which sees a team of boatmen – called the Swan Uppers – count swans along 79 miles of riverbank. Mr Barber encouraged people to continue the tradition of feeding birds brown bread that can be stale but not mouldy.
He said: ‘We would love them to all eat healthy food but it’s not always possible.
‘I’m afraid that brown bread is as good as anything for the time being through the cold winter months.
‘If the public changed tack and fed them chopped up lettuce, corn, or specialist food, that’s terrific, but it doesn’t come into everybody’s budget.’
He added: ‘the best thing for them is river weed and vegetation, but in the winter months it is very scarce because it dies away.
‘there isn’t much of it and they have to survive on something.’
Mr Barber believes the advice not to feed bread has already had an impact on the birds’ welfare.
He said: ‘It seems this year is particularly bad for underweight swans and cygnets and we have the whole winter to go yet.’