Stan sings his last swan song

Longboat said goodbye to one of its favorite feathery friends, Stan the swan.

Stan and Wendy made up one of the Key’s two mating pairs and were raising three cygnets, both 2 months old, when Stan died.

“It was a shock to me,” swan keeper David Novak said. “I noticed one day he had separated from Wendy and the cygnets, and it was noticeable that his mouth was open and he was open-mouthed breathing. He seemed to be fine in the water, so I let it go a day.”

Novak realized Stan was not getting better, so he collected Stan and took him to a vet. His diagnosis was a high temperature, infection and severe dehydration.

After receiving antibiotics and hydration, Stan seemed to be doing better.

“I was told that he’s strong, he’s standing and he’s eating,” Novak said. “His status was good.”

The vet was going to keep Stan to monitor him for a week, and Novak was planning on picking him up on July 1, but the swan began declining and became lethargic the day before. He could not recover from his sickness and died.

Wendy will continue to raise the three cygnets without Stan, and Sully and Susie are now the island’s only breeding pair.

“I wanted to get down to one breeding pair, and sadly this in essence has taken me down to this,” Novak said. “Susie and Sully are well-established in their territory and breeding successfully. I expect that to continue.”