The Swans versus the Food Bank?

Bread is bad for swans.

I think I saw this documentary! I think the most fascinating bit was how they managed to maintain perfect hair and makeup whilst being attacked. Very impressive. I also seem to remember a bit about a phone booth. I have included a photo of a dramatic re-interpretation of that part, as an original documentary photo might be too graphic for anyone who hates birds, or phone booths for that matter. Not sure the equivalent that you’d hide in now - maybe a cafe wirh WiFi? Just doesn’t have the same telephone ring to it.

OP would you genuinely prefer to see starving people than starving swans?

Just as a thought experiment.

I initially thought this was going to be about Swansea City FC.

Bread is not good for waterfowl.

I didn't think food banks took perishables like bread.
Community fridges/pantries take it, but they get inundated with bread too. No one wants a loaf that will have blue bits on in a couple of days.

I also forgot the Queen was dead, so they're owned by the King now.

Speak to the food bank and see if they have any suitable out of date bread or food they'd like to donate to the swans that they can't give to humans?

Hungry humans > Hungry swans

Swans WON'T survive on regularly donated bread! This is insane - of course the bread should be used for people who need it not swans who will be harmed by it! It isn't that bad if the swans are fed it occasionally, but regularly large amounts is. It's like children - feeding them chocolate is fine, feeding them chocolate for every meal would not be.

A statement was issued by the RSPB or whoever saying that you must not under any circumstances feed bread to waterfowl.
People took it on board and stopped.
Then all the ducks, geese and swans were dying from hunger. So the advice was reversed. The town i live in has a long stretch of canal snaking through it, along with 2 rivers and a couple of lakes. The waterfowl on these bodies of water are well fed by local people and are healthy and they breed every year, so eating bread doesnt seem to harm them 😉

Our local park had signs up years ago saying not to feed the ducks and swans bread. But then they weren't getting enough food so they that all stopped and we were told we could feed them again.

I agree with PPs theyre not a priority. Maybe start a go fund me to post on local FB pages and raise money to feed them? Then if there is enough interest you could get some proper swan food?

I love swans by the way

I think they eat food on the riverbed dont they?

Also dont they belong to the queen, in which case she should go out feeding them

I run a food bank. We are inundated with bread. So are other local FBs. It's the nature of it - fresh bread goes stale, quickly, and while one could live on nothing but bread and water most people do, thankfully, have options. And some service users have bad teeth and can't chew the posh ryes and sourdoughs we end up with. We do other exciting things with it like bread soup/ribollita, bread and butter pudding, croutons, and we freeze it, but tbh there are times when we hit our limits. We get 500kg in a week sometimes. If we can't store or distribute it we have to pay to dispose.

So - neither food banks nor swans for me. The shops and bakeries to produce less bread please, so there is less waste.

Haven't read all the responses here so might already be suggested, but there's an easy fix. Most foodbanks get too much perishable food and cannot distribute it in time. Why can't the bread go Supermarket -> Food bank -> Swans? You may also get things like lettuce, tinned sweet corn etc. If you give the foodbanks a list of what you could use up, then anything they can't give out could go to you. It'll probably be in a more appropriate quantity than you're currently getting if there's enough to supply a foodbank in the first place

Humans need it more.

The supermarkets sell cheap loaves for around 50 pence i sometimes buy a couple of them to feed the waterfowl who use the nearby canal.
Also at certain times B&M reduce the older loaves to 20 or 30 pence

I prefer cake but it doesn’t work like that.

Yes but they prefer bread 😆

Not from you

Also if it makes you feel better a bunch of homeless lads who come in take some of the especially stale stuff each week and go feed the birds by the river as a group. They enjoy it as a social event post food bank.

Actually this stuff likely cant go to the food bank, but most supermarkets struggle with food being taken out of the freezer and then being left at a checkout or in a trolley and it can't be returned to the freezer if they dont know how long its been out for. An agreement to take this waste would be better that bread?

If the swans need to be fed, it makes no sense to send inefficient food. Bread is linked to the foundation of human civilization. It clearly should go to humans and other food should be collected for wildfowl.

Bread is bad for birds and fine for humans so they’ve done the right thing.

Although as a food bank volunteer we’ve had lots of ‘donations’ of bread this week that has a sell by date of 23 Dec 😡 so shops need to remember the food bank is not a bin for gone off food and that people don’t deserve mouldy or stale crap.

Could the swans not be fed to the people who use the food bank? Or am I misunderstanding the problem.