.Vivianne

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In the spring of 2005 I began photographing a swan couple at New Orleans City Park. They hatched five cygnets and were excellent parents. The couple also had two daughters who were two years old. I must have taken 1,000 photos of the swan family. They knew my whistle and would swim to me when they heard me call. In August, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck and the canal levees broke and flooded the City of New Orleans. Water is not bad for swans but polluted water that kills all vegetation is poison. The 115 mph winds accompanying the hurricane could easily break a swan's neck, too. As soon as the floodwaters left City Park I got into the area searching for the swan family. There was no one in the City for miles around, only me and the stench of rotting vegetation and one miserable raccoon that was willing to eat my face for food. Luckily for both of us I had brought cat food with me and the raccoon had a feast. After much searching in the 98 degrees sun, I found one of the two year olds. She was rather shabby and very hungry. She ate some of the bread and corn I had brought but it would take days before she could really swallow well. I returned to the Park for almost a year after Katrina with cracked corn for the ducks, geese and Swannie because there was hardly anyone around to supply food. Animal groups had removed all the abandoned dogs and cats but no one thought of the waterfowl. For weeks I searched high and low for the parents and the cygnets and after six weeks, I found the mother and three of the cygnets in Aububon Park some 10 miles away in an area that had not flooded in Katrina. Papa Swan and the two other cygnets were never seen again. Mamma Swan never returned to City Park and the cygnets grew and flew away from Audubon Park.. That left only the one sister at City Park and she was so lonely. With the help of sponsors we bought a mate from Illinois for the sister, Swannie as I call her. We also bought two other pairs. However, the swans we bought were not quite a year. This is their third year and hopefully they will have offspring next year. That is if Swannie is not too old to reproduce.