Two Arrested For Killing And Eating A Park Swan

People eat ducks and turkeys and chickens, but swans are not often on the menu. Two men recently decided to see for themselves if swans were actually edible, and now they've been arrested for stealing and eating one out of a Shanghai public park.

According to Shanghaiist, swans are a protected species in China, and Shanghai's Xujiahui Park normally has five black swans in residence to add ambience and romance to the park setting. Recently, however, one of the birds disappeared. When park employees checked security tapes to see what had happened to the bird, they were stunned to see two strange men grab a swan in the middle of the night and run away with it.

It turns out they were pretty easy to catch from the surveillance video, and when police found the men, the culprits admitted to stealing and eating the swan.

The swan thieves told police that they were initially in the park to catch fish, which is also illegal, but they were afraid of being caught by security. On their way on the run from the guards, they say they encountered a black swan and decided to grab it.

The men admitted to boiling the swan meat and eating it with some radishes, but they said that they found the taste of swan unappetizing and wound up throwing about half of it away.

Only eating half the swan will probably not get them leniency, though, and both have been arrested for hunting and killing a protected species.