Swans Hopped Up On Poppies Overrun Slovakian Farm
A poppy farm in Slovakia has been taken over by a bevy of swans. Dozens of the big birds “do not intend to leave this area at all,” Baltics News reports, “because the birds have turned into ‘drug addicts.’”
The swans arrived at the farm of Balints Pam near the town of Komárno in February and have hardly moved since then. “They came gradually. We counted more than 200 swans here,” says Pam, who believes the birds were attracted not by the poppies but by large rain puddles in the fields. There they got a taste for the narcotic plant, possibly mistaking it for rapeseed.
The swans binged on poppies until they had eaten through five hectares (12 acres), by which time they were well and truly hooked. It took time to wrangle the hopheads because swans are a protected species in Slovakia – you not only may not hunt them, you are forbidden to even disturb them.
But eventually Pam was able to get a special permit to – gently – have the avian opium addicts removed. The birds are now detoxing in rehab until they can be safely released in the wild. No one knows if the birds will relapse and seek out the demon drug again, for now they’re just taking it one day at a time.
DW News has posted a video of the drug-addled swans here.
Photo credit: DW News
Photo credit: Baltics News
