Feud between wildlife campaigners and anglers abates slightly as fisherman rescues swan in Milton Keynes

The ongoing feud between city wildlife rescuers and anglers has been thrown an olive branch after a fisherman came to the rescue of a suffocating swan.

But now the wildlife champions are suggesting a special ‘code of conduct’ be introduced by the Milton Keynes Angling Association (MKAA) to ensure all incidents of brids injured by fishing tackle are dealt with so efficiently.

On Saturday morning Allie Short and her colleague from MK Swan Rescue received a call to Furzton Lake, where two swans had become tangled in an extremely long length of abandoned fishing line fixed to a heavy bait bomb.

One had the line caught around its wing and was bleeding where it cut in, while the other was tightly tangled around its neck and was struggling to breathe.

"The angler himself, John, known as ‘JD’, called the report in immediately and we rushed to site,” said Allie, who has carried out numerous other such rescues at Furzton.

“But before we got there, an unknown man caught the swan that had line tightly tangled around his neck and was struggling to breathe, and removed the line, no doubt saving the life of this bird.

"We don’t know who he was. He was walking with a lady believed to be his wife. But would like him to know how grateful we are.”

Allie added: “We are aware there will always be accidents, but because of this particular angler taking immediate action, and with the help of our unknown friend, there were no serious injuries. If only all anglers were as responsible as “JD”, we would be able to resolve the tackle injuries much more easily and hopefully avoid them from developing into much more serious issues.”

Furzton Lake is heavily populated with swans and is a popular haunt with local anglers. The issue of bird being injured by fishing tackle crops up on a very regular basis there and had led to strong words from the swan rescuers against careless anglers.

In response, the anglers have blamed the “overpopulated” birds – for swimming into their lines. And they banned Allie from their Facebook page.

Now Allie has suggested an olive branch – a new code of conduct to be printed on the MKAA website detailing exactly how anglers should respond when a fishing tackle injury happens

“Perhaps if they were to bring in a wildlife related code of conduct that stipulated the way in which they should deal with the accidental tackling of wildlife, this would help to resolve the issues we are seeing all too often? This is something that we would very gladly work with them to create, as it would clearly be in the best interests of the birds, and everyone else involved,” she said.

Allie said she had been approached by a lot of MKAA members thanking her for highlighting the issues, and for all the work MK Swan Rescue does as a group.

"It is clear from the feedback received that we have support within the organisation itself, which I believe could be extremely helpful with regard to the self-policing/enforcement of any code of conduct that were to be introduced,” she said.