(WSVN) - Cellphone video captured the moments when a bird flapped in fear in what appears to be a fight with a man in a Central Florida park.
The man in the video stopped when a good Samaritan stepped in, and that stranger may have been the reason the swan and her nest were saved.
This is the short video Pieter Snyman shot of the man attacking a swan. The bird could be seen flapping its wings, trying to get the man away.
“I saw this person walk up to the swan nest. It made me concerned,” Snyman said. “I watched him, and he suddenly started beating the swan with a jacket and then with his hands.”
Snyman said the man stopped when he noticed he was being recorded.
“Then when he turned and saw me do that, he came towards me and said, ‘What are you doing?’ I didn’t answer him because I didn’t want to engage at all,” Snyman said.
He said a man nearby wanted to know what the man was doing.
“The person next to me sitting on the bench said, ‘Why are you doing that?’ He said, ‘I’m looking for eggs,'” Snyman said.
This comes less than a month after another man was caught on camera grabbing young swans from a nest and taking them away in a cooler. He claimed he was doing it for the birds’ protection.
Snyman said he doesn’t understand why anyone would go near them.
“Personally, I would not get close to a swan. They look pretty vicious, and they’re pretty big,” he said.
The incident has been reported to park rangers.
Not only are swans big, but they can be very aggressive when it comes to protecting their territory.
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