ORLANDO, Fla. – Onlookers watched in disbelief as a man batted away a mother and father swan at Lake Eola, grabbed their recently hatched babies and tossed them into a red cooler, according to witnesses and video of the incident.
Frank Howard said he and his fiancé were at Lake Eola Park Sunday evening admiring the swan family with two babies, known as cygnets, when a man approached carrying a red cooler.
The man, wearing athletic wear and sneakers, told Howard he worked for “Lake Eola Park” and was taking the cygnets to protect them from wildlife. “He reached down and grabbed one, and the mom started going crazy and he hit the mom with the cooler,” Howard said. “He was saying, ‘Yeah, we rescue them all the time.