Last-ditch effort to hatch stolen swan eggs
Staff at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts check an incubator containing swan eggs on Monday.
Security staff at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts began using an incubator on Monday in an attempt to hatch three black swan eggs that were stolen from nests on campus.
Shanghai Daily reported on Saturday that the university in Songjiang District had notified police last week about the disappearance of 10 eggs laid by three black swan couples on its campus.
Surveillance cameras eventually showed images of two people making off with the eggs. The egg snatchers were tracked to their home near the university, where police found three swan eggs in the pair's refrigerator. The pair denied that they had stolen the other seven eggs, which police have not yet recovered.
The three eggs were brought back to the university, but their parents will no longer accept them in their nests, according to university staff.
After consulting bird experts, security personnel on campus decided to purchase an incubator in an effort to hatch the eggs.
“We’ve set the temperature at 37.8 degrees Celsius and the humidity below 80 percent inside the machine,” said a university staffer surnamed Fan. “Experts say the chances of success are low as the natural incubation process has been interrupted and the temperature surrounding the eggs has changed. But we still want to have a last try."
Fan added that the swan parents now avoid human beings.
“It was a pleasant thing to see the swans swim in the lake on our campus, but now we hardly see them,” he lamented.
Swan eggs sit inside an incubation machine.
