greetings everyone,
As a child who’s best friend was a Sulfur-Crested Cockatoo in the mid 1970’s when the US cop show ‘Barretta’ had a cockatoo starring in it that took peanuts from the mouth of its owner I naturally did the same with our family Cocky.
As my life now revolves around black swans and I spend most of my spare time studying them I’ve found some of them to be extremely trusting. Some of them become very affectionate, especially after a month of hand feeding their cygnets that climb on you and sleep on your lap!
It started with bread morsels between my lips, which the swan would take from my mouth and at times I could just pucker up to the swan and I’d get a kiss (even without the bread)! A cold-sore appeared on my lower lip, ( which happens if I’m run down and occurs about twice a year) and I was concerned about what harm I could be doing to the swans.
THEN I READ ABOUT SWANS IN ENGLAND CARRYING HERPES !
I’ve sent an email to the site inquiring about their herpes claim but not received a reply yet. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY INFO ON THE SUBJECT??????????????????????????????
ALSO
A few weeks ago in the middle of the night, mum, dad and 6 cygnets were feasting on the tiny little fishes attracted by the light on the end of the jetty. This was an itinerant family and I have not studied their eating habits before but I have never seen the resident swans eating little fish before. There is plenty of natural swan herbal delicacies available as well as lettuce,spinach & other human handouts so they are not hungry!
Could it just be a training opportunity for the 5 week old cygnets ??? (what they can eat if need be)
I noticed Progress Jetty’s dad swan take a 2 week old cygnet under his wings during a threat display posturing session with another very large & ornamented male which I assume was simply for training the baby as mum was right there and could have taken junior or she could have taken care of the male intruder. SO I’m suggesting they have some interesting training techniques. Pat Appleton
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If anyone else is curious apparently most herpes viruses are thought to be host specific and not spread between unrelated species.
Herpes simplex virus 1, the common cause of cold sources, is one of few confirmed exceptions and can be transitted to a range of primates and cause serious disease or death. Its very unlikely you can pass it to a swan, but don’t kiss lemurs, tree shrews, marmosets, gorillas, etc.
Symmetrically there is herpes virus found in macaques, Cercopithecine herpesvirus 1, which causes them few problems but has a high mortality rate in the few humans that have caught it – kiss a macaque and you both could get a potentially fatal herpes infection.
There is a well-known herpes virus, duck herpesvirus 1, found in waterfowl with a high mortality rate in waterfowl but not known from Australia and not thought to be a threat to humans.
Andrew ===============================
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