Despite the long battle the village of Manlius has fought to be able to hatch their mute swan eggs each year, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is still questioning what they plan to do with the pair of mute swans in Manlius, Manny and Faye, when it comes to mating season next year.

The event seemed to be sparked by a recent complaint from a resident after one of the adult swans attacked and killed a duck, said Mayor Paul Whorrall.

“Unfortunately, nature takes its course and one of the ducks decided it wanted to ‘play’ with one of the baby swans and the parent swan did what it would do in nature — which is to protect its young,” said Whorrall at the Aug. 11 village board meeting.

Whorrall said the village has only received one complaint this year regarding this matter, but was contacted by the DEC, who said they were looking for information on what will be done next year when Faye lays her eggs and also whether Michael Bean was still the caretaker of the swans.

Whorrall said the village still has their permit that allows them to keep and hatch the cygnets when they

“Each year, at least two or three times a summer you’ll see dead ducks on the side of the road and I’m not going to reroute the traffic to allow them to cross to the other side of the road … It’s the swan pond, not the duck pond,” said Whorrall. “It was an opportunity for them [DEC] to open the issue back up so we’ll address it.”

According to Whorrall, Bean will take the current three cygnets to his facility in Skaneateles until they can be transported to a qualified facility in Pennsylvania. Bean is responsible for preparing all the proper transfer papers.

Hayleigh Gowans is a reporter for the Eagle Bulletin. She can be reached at [email protected].