Two of Prospect Park’s beloved swans are recovering at a wildlife clinic after they were attacked by what rescuers believe was an off-leash dog.
The seven-month-old cygnets were rescued by wildlife lovers on Dec. 14 and transported to the Wild Bird Fund, where they remain nearly a week later, being treated for head and eye wounds. Part of a celebrity swan family, the duo hatched in the park this summer and live there with their parents and three other siblings.
A parkgoer spotted the bloodied swans on Dec. 13 and texted a picture to a member of the “Swan Squad,” a small, self-appointed group of locals who help keep an eye on the park’s wildlife.
“Both were injured over their right eye, and they are not consistent with swan-on-swan attacks,” said Squad member Mary Beth Artz. “This is a family, these cygnets are only seven months old. They’re not being pushed out yet by their parents, they’re not aggressive with one another … these are consistent with a probable dog attack.”
Rachel Frank, an animal care manager and rehabber at the Wild Bird Fund who has been caring for the birds, agreed. The clinic has treated other birds with similar and severe injuries from dog attacks, she said. Thanks to their large size, mute swans are rarely threatened by natural predators — like foxes or coyotes — unless they’re already injured or sick.
Park rangers tried unsuccessfully to capture the swans on Dec. 13, Artz said. A day later, the Swan Squad staged their own rescue mission and managed to get both birds to the Wild Bird Fund.
The cygnets were very stressed when they arrived at the clinic, Frank said. One had a “pretty severe laceration” just above their right eye, which is being treated with antibiotics and pain medication.
The other swan had a smaller wound on their head, but suffered a more concerning injury to the right eye. The eye is cloudy, Frank said, and though they’re treating it with medicated drops, she worries the swan might have lost some of its vision.
She and the team will continue to monitor the birds and adjust their treatment as needed. It’s “pretty likely” they can both be successfully rehabilitated and returned to their family, Frank said, though the swan with the eye injury may be unreleasable, depending on the severity of its vision loss.
Without human intervention, though, the birds would have fared far worse, Frank said. Dogs’ mouths are filled with bacteria that can be deadly for wildlife, and the birds’ injuries were infected when they arrived at the clinic. Since swans constantly dunk their heads into the water to eat, it’s unlikely that the wounds would have healed well.
“I don’t think they would have done well if we had just left them in the park,” she said.
Though it’s not clear when or where the attack occurred, Frank said the birds were likely resting on land when the dog approached. Swans can’t take flight easily from a stationary position, she said, so they would have to either rush into the water or attempt to defend themselves.
“They were probably hissing at it and trying to drive it away, and it probably got them both in the head because they were .. trying to bite at the dog to defend themselves,” Frank said.
Off-leash dogs are only allowed in certain areas of Prospect Park during certain hours of the day, and are not permitted near the lake, where the swans live. While many dog owners are happy to oblige, a number regularly break the rules, Artz said.
“When we were trying to rescue these two cygnets last weekend, there were actually dogs running around,” she said. “We had to ask the owners, please, we’re in the middle of a rescue, which is not easy — it was freezing — and they’re just letting their dogs run around.”
Dogs often grab birds and other small mammals and shake them, causing severe injuries, Frank said. The Wild Bird Fund has treated a number of birds with serious neck injuries from dog attacks, she said, and even a possum who lived the rest of its life in a sanctuary after neurological damage from a dog attack left it blind.
Chris Clark, a spokesperson for the city’s parks department, said the agency is “committed to protecting our greenspaces and wildlife habitats and maintaining the general health of New York City’s urban environment for all New Yorkers — both human and animal.”
This year, the department has issued about 200 off-leash dog summonses in Prospect Park alone. Per department rules, all dogs have to be prevented from chasing wildlife, and PEP officers can cite owners who can’t control their dogs whether they’re leashed or not.
But Artz said off-leash rules and other protections for wildlife are rarely enforced in the park, which is part of why the Swan Squad was formed — along with a larger group, W.I.L.D. for Prospect Park. There aren’t enough park rangers or PEP officers to keep track of everything, she said.
“We realize that they are short staffed,” she said. “There’s just a small number of rangers … there’s just not enough staffing to monitor what needs to be monitored. I know they try, but a lot more has to be done. We are constantly seeing the wildlife in trouble because of the lack of enforcement.”
The swans and other birds in the park face additional human-related threats. When Artz and the Swan Squad rescued the two injured swans, they saw that another cygnet had fishing wire tangled around its neck.
It’s a common sight at the Prospect Park lake, where people often leave their fishing line and hooks in the water and on the shore. Since ducks, geese and swans forage for food at the bottom of lakes and ponds, they frequently end up getting tangled with abandoned fishing equipment, and Frank said that the cygnets’ dad, who has lived at the park since 2022, has been taken to the Wild Bird Fund at least once for a fishing line injury.
In March W.I.L.D. for Prospect Park rescued a Canada Goose after an abandoned fishing lure snagged its wing and left a bloody wound. Last year, the group spent weeks chasing a duck with a fish hook lodged in its foot. Sometimes, the harm isn’t accidental — in 2019, someone stole seven swan eggs from the park.
Artz and the other members of W.I.L.D. regularly roam the park, keeping an eye on the birds and speaking to dog owners when necessary, she said. But they have no power to enforce the rules, and not everyone is receptive to their efforts. She said the city must increase its education and enforcement efforts to keep the city’s wildlife safe.
“We need education on the ground,” Artz said. “It would be great if the parks department, the rangers, could develop a program in real time, on-site out there. What would really help is to have people in uniform … just to have people connect in the right way.”
