Mr Swan's uphill battle to save swans  The documentary "Mr Swan" opens with a wrenching scene of a wounded swan, a swan in pain. The sight of the beautiful bird is painful to viewers who treasure nature and its inhabitants. The message is clear: save the swans. The film ends with a carcass of a swan, killed for its flesh, a delicacy.Mr Swan, the 52-year-old TV repairman Yuan Xueshun, takes the injured swan home to his village near Rongcheng Swan Lake in Shandong Province and nurses it back to health. Mr Swan won an international environmental grant of 200,000 (US$25,800) in 2003 for protecting swans for 30 years, and is something of a celebrity. But locally he is not beloved and is widely known as "Crazy Yuan," not Mr Swan. Some locals thought "he should use the grant to pay us because swans ate our wheat." The rescued and dead swans are among thousands injured or killed as man encroaches with his industry and buildings on the largest swan habitat in Asia, the fourth largest in the world. Flying swans injure themselves in power lines, collide with other swans and suffer other accidents; they suffer hunger and thirst as their wetlands are filled in for construction. Their foodchain is broken and they themselves become food. Swans are hunted, trapped and poisoned for meat that is sold to restaurants. Residents hate them for eating their grain: Saving the swans is not a priority. Most of the dead or injured swans, however, suffer accidents, not deliberate killing. The story of Mr Swan is told by Sun Xian, a 39-year-old cinematographer from Shandong's Weihai City. He began filming in January 2004 and just finished the project recently. Sun is virtually unknown in the film world after 16 years and has had no commercial success, but "Mr Swan" is likely to be a feather in his documentary cap. |
