Urgent warning over feeding bread to birds in Sheffield parks after swan falls seriously ill

The Friends of Graves Park shared this photo of the stricken swan, which it says is suffering from a deformity known as ‘angel wing’, a permanent condition rendering it flightless.

"The cause is usually down to birds being fed excess amounts of bread. It is entirely preventable,” the group said in a statement on its Facebook page.

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“Please remember this when folk are tipping sliced loaves into the ponds.”

It added: “The basic advice is that a bit of bread won't hurt them. However in a park, like Graves, hundreds of folk feed them bread every day. And this does harm them.

"The young swans grow far to quickly and their wings can't keep up. Once the angel wing has occurred it is too late and the bird will never fly. Because of this they are easy victims of foxes etc.”

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The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has previously warned that feeding birds too much bread stops them getting a natural, balanced diet, with all the nutrients they need, and can leave them prone to angel wing.

The government’s Animal and Plant Health Agency has said that large amounts of bread can harm wildfowl, resulting in ‘fatal or disabling health conditions’.

It also says that uneaten food can cause changes to the chemical and bacteriological content of water, increasing the risk of avian disease.

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