Swan beaten to death by boaters
Plumstead, PA (US)Incident Date: Thursday, Jul 17, 2008
County: Bucks
Disposition: Open
Suspect(s) Unknown - We need your help!
Case Updates: 1 update(s) available
The Bucks County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is offering a $500 reward to find the people responsible for the apparent beating death of a swan on the Delaware River last month.
The swan, named Grace Boy by locals, looks as though he was beaten with a paddle on the part of the river between Point Pleasant and Stockton, N.J., Bucks SPCA director Anne Irwin said. He left behind a confused mate and several babies.
"This broke up a happy swan family," she said.
The death left a hole in a human family as well. Curtis Cooperman, who lives with his wife on the Stockton side of the river, said he has been feeding Grace Boy and his mate since the swan showed up in his part of the river seven years ago.
"He's been part of our lives for half the time I've lived here," Cooperman said. "Grace Boy was my buddy. ... You look out in the darkness and, suddenly, he's out there."
Cooperman suspects some nearby boaters killed the swan to bait him as part of an ongoing dispute. Cooperman said he was sitting on his deck around 11 p.m. July 17 when a camouflaged boat pulled into the river near his property and shone a bright light on the water to illuminate the swan's battered body.
A friend of Cooperman's later found the swan's body upstream. Cooperman turned it over to the SPCA. When the body is returned, he plans to bury it between two nearby trees.
The boat suspected in the beating was last seen docked on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware, according to Irwin. The case is being investigated by SPCA branches on both sides of the river and the New Jersey State Police, said Plumstead police Chief Duane Hasenauer. People of interest have been interviewed, but the investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made, Hasenauer said.
Depending on the circumstances of Grace Boy's beating, the charge is a summary offense at least and a second degree misdemeanor at most.
"If someone deliberately killed a swan, that is definitely a crime on either side of the river," Irwin said.
She hopes authorities will be able to find whoever is behind Grace Boy's beating. She also hopes the message will get out that it's a crime to purposefully harm any animal. The Bucks SPCA has successfully prosecuted cases where wild animals have been abused, including one where someone bound a possum to the hood of a car, then drove it around.
"People shouldn't think any animal is fair game," she said. If you have information on this case, please contact:
Bucks County SPCA
215-794-7425
Case UpdatesThe reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who killed a swan last month on the Delaware River north of New Hope has been increased from $500 to $1,500.
The higher reward was made possible in large part by a $500 pledge from the Lehigh Valley Animal Rights Coalition, said Nikki Thompson, a humane officer with the Bucks County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The Bucks SPCA, with the New Jersey State SPCA, is investigating the July 17 killing. The bird was beaten to death.
Virginia Wolfe, president of the Lehigh Valley organization, said the agency has a standing commitment to offer a reward in animal abuse cases.
''Unfortunately it's too seldom that we get to pay that. We've only had to pay this two or three times'' in about 15 years, she said. The group offers a reward an average of four times a year.
''There has to be somebody who knows something that the reward is going to be attractive enough to come forward with some information,'' Wolfe said.
Thompson said her agency hasn't received many more leads over the last couple weeks, but it continues to press on with the investigation.
The male swan was named Grace Boy by Curtis Cooperman, who has a riverside home in Stockton, N.J., and who watched out for the bird over the last seven years.
To contact the Bucks SPCA with information, call 215-794-7425. | Source: The Morning Call - Aug 18, 2008
Update posted on Aug 18, 2008 - 11:36AM |
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