The Swans versus the Food Bank?

[PassingStranger]

A well known supermarket used to donate their leftover bread in our area for the volunteers to feed the swans with.
We have a team of volunteers who look after the swans.

They stopped donating the bread and said it had to go to the foodbank.

What do you think?

Give it to the food bank, people need the bread, the swans will be much happier, bread just bloats them up and has no nutritional value, they can happily survive on their own in the wild, wildlife organisations give alternatives to bread, I feed them peas, sweetcorn

Bread can kill birds. It has very little nutritional value and fills them up so they dont seek out real food. It can leadnto malnutritional starvation and it also molds really easily and can cause medical issues because of that, to the birds and the general health of the water!

Perhaps you can get people to donate stuff that DO have nutritional value.

@MrsMitford3 I think there’s some confusion here. I read the entire scientific paper that I took the photo I shared from; I didn’t just Google it and think “job done.” But this was my fault for not including a source, and I’m sorry about that. Also, in his statement, the Swan Marker says, “While bread may not be the best dietary option for swans compared to their natural food such as river weed, it has become a very important source of energy for them, supplementing their natural diet and helping them to survive the cold winter months when vegetation is very scarce.” So yes, if it’s an option of you feeding an adult swan bread in winter or them starving, then the risk of “inappropriate diet” is higher from food shortage than from bread. And it’s not just angel wing that’s the problem. Someone else mentioned bread causing algae bloom, and here’s a link about that, from a government website:
https://www.nelincs.gov.uk/keeping-our-area-clean-and-safe/say-no-to-bread-for-ducks/

According to the scientific paper, angel wing is caused by dietary deficiencies - but this can either be a food shortage or too many carbohydrates (the issue is excess calories or filling up without vitamins, like eating white bread) or lack of vitamins apparently (again, can be caused by filling up on nutritionally deficient white bread). They have observed angel wing in wild populations with no human contact (boobies on Clipperton Island) but there HAD been a period of food shortage. So, angel wing is a deformity caused by inappropriate diet (there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of argument on this?). But there is apparently disagreement, even amongst experts, of what the worse “inappropriate diet” is, based on the fact that I can provide evidence from ornithological organizations (see sources) that contradicts what you’ve shared - I would say it’s better not to starve, yes, but it can also go too far in the other direction, with feeding too many “empty” calories; this seems to happen more often in parks and tourist spots.

Here’s the study I read, which talks about angel wing NOT being present until the swans (or cygnets) being studied were 10 weeks old. At 8 weeks (I think it was 8 weeks), they had normal wing joints. So it could be that some swans are more sensitive to any feed that isn’t natural? I don’t know about that part, as I’m not an ornithologist.

Almost every link I could find says it’s inappropriate diet, so I’d legitimately like to hear what the Swan Marker thinks causes angel wing, and his or her opinions on the algae bloom from bread? I’m not being a jerk; I’d actually like to know because you’re absolutely right; I’m sure he or she knows much more than I do, and maybe I’m just missing something here. But it seems like saying it’s not bread is a bit disingenuous; it’s feeding cygnets too many calories, and bread contains excess calories for a swan (except, as stated, maybe a rural adult swan in winter). Obviously, based on the papers, there are scientists much smarter than me trying to work this out. If you have a starving swan, and all you have is a bit of bread, feed them. If they are only adult swans and it’s winter, feed them bread, though still preferably not white bread. But IF you have the choice, other options might be better.

Paper showing normal wing joints then abnormalities start in some swans:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579122006836#bib0027

Paper talking about angel wing on Clipperton Island:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1676/11-208.1

And an ornithological group sharing a long article about angel wing and its causes:
https://ducksofprovidence.com/angel-wing-in-ducks/

My main concern OP, is that the swans will be angry and attack the food bank. They can break a man's arm.

I saw a documentary where this happened in a small American town during the 1960s. All the other birds got involved tol. Might be on Netflix if you can find it.

You shouldn't give bread to swans it's bad for them.

Ha ha! Excellent!

Joking aside, couldn't swan supporters ask a supermarket if they could put a swan food box outside the tills area so people can donate food if they wish (with sign about what foods are suitable)? Our local pet food bank (we have a lot of low income pet owners) do this in a large Tescos near me and one in another part of our borough.

I thought it was going to be about you choosing to eat swans rather than go to a food bank.

I understand that bread is better for swans than starving, but they are not going to make any effort to seek out more nutritious food in the wild if they are habituated to getting all their energy requirements from regular bread feeding.
The bread should go to food banks first, any leftovers can then go to swans.

@PassingStranger, Bread isn't good for swans.
The Quack Down on Can Swans Eat Bread? - Birds & WetlandsThe Quack Down on Can Swans Eat Bread? - Birds & Wetlands

Tried all those. The swans (well it might have been ducks) laughed at us and went over to the people with the bread.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

Not from you

Yes but they prefer bread 😆

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

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

Humans need it more.

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

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.

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 love swans by the way