LEAD MINE POISONING MAY HAVE ENDED

  

 

Last notes

of a swan song for swans?

How polluted are the lakes in the Lake District? Two of the biggest lakes have different stories this week.

At Windermere, a local conservationist has started an online petition calling for a ban on sewage pollution. He says  the lake could become ecologically dead.

 

 At Ullswater(pictured) a few miles further north, the sight of swans   swimming  happily raised hopes that lead  was no longer polluting the lake.For many years swans   on the lake have died of lead poisoning

This phenomenon- possibly not generally known about- seems to have been first identified by a local GP who was also a keen naturalist. He lived near Ullswater and had a regular nature column in the Herald, a Penrith local newspaper.

In his column in the 1930`s he reported his thoughts and observations of the swan mystery and came to the conclusion that the birds may have been poisoned by the lead from Greenside lead mine that had polluted the lake. But he never proved that this was so.

His findings appeared in the Herald and some years later  another local man became interested in solving the mystery  and carried out his own investigation.

Local people managed to get the bodies of several swans which had died in the lake and they were sent  off for post mortems to a Ministry of Agriculture veterinary establishment in Edinburgh.

There it was found that the swans had all died from lead poisoning. The findings created a great deal of interest and were reported in the Penrith Observer, another local newspaper.

Since then the man has not had an opportunity to establish whether swans on Ullswater were living or continuing to die.

Now the man says:”If the swans are staying alive, it may be that Ullswater is now free from lead pollution. Or perhaps they no longer feed on their natural food, the underwater greenery growing in the lake, because they are being fed with pollution-free food.

“Whatever the explanation, the sight of swans swimming happily  may be the welcome evidence we need that Ullswater is today now much more free of lead pollution and  may be no longer providing a swan song for swans".

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