The Queen owns all the swans

[snopes]

Comment: Is it true that the monarch of the UK (currently Queen Elizabeth
II) owns all the swans in Britain and that you must receive permission
from the monarch if you want to eat one?

[llewtrah]

There's the Swan-Upping ceremony in London - a day on which the Lords Taverners claim and mark as many swans as possible. AIUI, the ones they don't claim and mark on this day belong to the monarch. I know the taxidermist I use has to go through legal hoops whenver he gets a dead swan (usually one tht crashed into overhead power lines)

[Hans Off]

IIRC it only applies to Mute swans and not other species..

And i'm sure it's not quite as simple as her "owning" them, more like she gets first dibs on any I think!

[jw]

All swans in Britain are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, although the mute swan has had special protection since 1482 because the species is owned by the Crown.

This muslim man was jailed for catching and eating one.

According to this article their numbers are growing, with anglers calling for them to be culled, yet another says asylum seekers are doing it for them, dining on the species.

[Andrew of Ware]

Ware has had a large flock (term?) of swans for hundreds of years - there is even one on the Great Bed of Ware. A couple of years there was a thread on 'WareOnLine' (lost when their hard disc crashed) saying that assylum seekers were coming from London and eating them.

Nothing was proved and so this is probably just an Urban Legend.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by Andrew of Ware

Ware has had a large flock (term?) of swans for hundreds of years - there is even one on the Great Bed of Ware. A couple of years there was a thread on 'WareOnLine' (lost when their hard disc crashed) saying that assylum seekers were coming from London and eating them.

Nothing was proved and so this is probably just an Urban Legend.

I've heard many rumours about such things. The only case that has come to trail is the Muslim man, linked to earlier in the thread. Thus I'd say it was a UL.

[llewtrah]

Apparently swan doesn't taste particularly good. Personally, I'd have expected it to be like goose.

[lord_feldon]

http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page4952.asp

Today, the Crown retains the right to ownership of all unmarked mute swans in open water, but The Queen only exercises her ownership on certain stretches of the Thames and its surrounding tributaries.

This ownership is shared with the Vintners' and Dyers' Companies, who were granted rights of ownership by the Crown in the fifteenth century. Nowadays, of course, the swans are no longer eaten.

[Andrew of Ware]

Originally Posted by lord_feldon

[url]

The Queen only exercises her ownership on certain stretches of the Thames and its surrounding tributaries.

Thanks for the link, Your Grace. The River Lea, which flows through Ware, is a tributary of the Thames, but I have never heard of either the monarch or any London Company claiming ownership of the swans. Certainly no 'swan-upping' (i.e. marking) is carried out.

[llewtrah]

Slight hijack. My father told me one of his rambling jokes yesterday which sort of ties in with this. A bloke was charged with shooting a protected Golden Eagle. He pleaded not guilty on the grounds he was grouse shooting and instinctively fired at the large bird as it took off. The judge asked what he'd done with the body and the chap said he'd eaten it, since he couldn't bring it back to life. Intrigued, the judge asked what golden eagle tasted like. "Like swan, m'lud" answered the defendant. Whoops.

[DevilBunny]

Further hijack.

I am suddenly reminded of this news story: Master of the Queen's Music is hoping to escape spending any time in the Tower for his rare meal

[Andrew of Ware]

Originally Posted by DevilBunny

Further hijack.

I am suddenly reminded of this news story: Master of the Queen's Music is hoping to escape spending any time in the Tower for his rare meal

Bringing the hijack back on topic:

The swan is a whooper swan, a species not owned by the queen. The law he may have broken concerns the Wildlife and Countryside Act because all swans are protected species in the UK. Thus if he is banged up it will not be because he has eaten a queen's swan. (I hope he is not charged with a felony because he reported the death to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and he was not responsible for the death.

Now to re-hijack the thread. Perhaps the weirdest part of the story is this bit:

The police took the carcass from his freezer as well as the wings, which he had kept for Sanday primary school to use as angel wings in its next nativity play.

Somehow I cannot imagine a young child wanting to wear the wings of a dead bird.

[Blatherskite]

Originally Posted by Andrew of Ware

Somehow I cannot imagine a young child wanting to wear the wings of a dead bird.

Are you kidding? I had to dress as bird of paradise one year for something or other (you don't question these things when you're young) and the only thing that would have made the experience more enjoyable would have been wearing some part of genuine dead bird. I think plenty young children would see real dead bird wings and say 'wow!'.

[Stoneage Dinosaur]

A little girl of six was so upset after being pecked by a swan that she demanded to know who owned the “naughty” bird.

After being informed by her mother that the Queen is the legal owner of all mute swans in Britain, Elishia Stevenson decided to take Her Majesty to task.

Sorry for One's Swan