U.S President James A Garfield once said that "Man cannot live by bread alone…" and the same can be said of swans and other wild birds. President Garfield’s full statement was "Man cannot live on bread alone. He needs peanut butter." When it comes to swans, the answer could well be that in addition to bread they need a ‘varied diet including grains, veg.' Granted - it’s not quite as punchy or amusing as the POTUS’ saying, but it is clear that swans need a varied diet.
Some would argue that people shouldn’t feed bread and many parks and other venues have ‘banned’ visitors from feeding bread to swans and ducks. At Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust we would rather provide people with advice on what else they can feed than impose a ban.
In these days of social media and quick fire headlines some folk are all too quick to build any difference of opinion into a full blow fall out but when I looked at the various statements issued on the topic of feeding bread to wild swans it was clear that there was actually a lot of consensus.