lola @lolatheswan 4/26 11:00 am
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Her mother rejected her.
00:01 Now we are mom and dad.
00:02 It's your birthday, girl.
00:04 She rules our world.
00:05 I'm Andrew, and this is Lola's story for GeoBeats.
00:08 There's a local lake in downtown Orlando.
00:10 The mother left the nest with the other cygnets,
00:13 but Lola hatched after the others.
00:15 So she was alone in the nest.
00:17 The rangers scooped her up and tried to reintroduce her
00:19 to the known parents, and the mother rejected her.
00:23 The rangers realized that she needed to be rescued.
00:26 All right, good girl.
00:27 We live on a lake. We had rehabilitated a goose.
00:31 We thought, we'll give it a shot,
00:32 get her to the size that we need her to be able to fend
00:34 for herself, and then we'll reintroduce her to the lake.
00:37 Good job.
00:40 We worked with the city, as well as some other volunteers,
00:43 and we reintroduced her to her sibling.
00:45 They developed a bond.
00:46 We thought, great, what a success.
00:47 Unfortunately, since Lola did not grow up on that lake
00:50 and navigate the waters, she went into an area
00:52 where one of the most aggressive swans was,
00:54 and was attacked by this male swan.
00:56 Thankfully, she was okay, but at that point,
00:58 we said, Lola's gonna be with us forever.
01:00 Lola, you wanna go home?
01:02 We didn't do all this work for Lola to go back on her lake,
01:05 not know how to survive and perish.
01:07 In consulting with the Regal Swan Foundation,
01:09 they came and took a look at our yard,
01:11 our access to the lake, and said,
01:13 she is absolutely best here with you.
01:15 We had to do a lot of modifications to our backyard.
01:17 There's already a mating pair of swans on this lake.
01:22 So we had to create, into the lake,
01:23 a 20 by 20 foot space for her to have access to
01:26 and do fencing all the way down to the lake's edge.
01:29 And the mating pair don't like, I guess,
01:31 necessarily seeing another swan in their territory,
01:34 but they've figured it out
01:35 and they've respected the boundaries.
01:37 We built a very extensive home for her outside,
01:45 and she's very protected.
01:47 But every night, she would walk to the bottom of our stairs
01:49 and she's just going back and forth,
01:51 waiting for us to come bring her inside.
01:52 So we obliged, of course,
01:54 every night she comes pretty much the same time.
01:56 We have our TV room, we put a bunch of pads down.
01:59 In the morning, we pick her up, we bring her outside,
02:06 and we have the same routine.
02:07 Sometimes she sleeps in her house outside,
02:08 but she definitely prefers to be inside with us.
02:11 She knows when the lights go out that it's bedtime.
02:14 She's really smart.
02:15 We'll say it's sleepy time.
02:16 And her chirp, instead of it being high-pitched,
02:18 it's a little more docile.
02:20 We turn on crickets on the sound system
02:22 overnight so she has the sound of outside.
02:24 She waits for that.
02:25 I would compare her intelligence to a dog
02:27 for learning commands, understanding things.
02:30 She grew up with our dogs,
02:32 so she understands they're not predators.
02:34 For the most part, they get along.
02:40 There's a little, like any siblings, right?
02:42 Lola is almost three years old.
02:49 Swans in captivity live for 35 years,
02:50 so this is a commitment for us,
02:52 as well as for her,
02:53 but we wouldn't have it any other way.
02:55 Lola, happy birthday!
02:57 It's absolutely incredibly endearing
03:01 every time we walk outside,
03:03 when she comes up and wants to come spend time with us.
03:05 She is everything to us.
03:06 Our life truly revolves around her.
03:08 Every decision we make and think about in life,
03:11 everything we do, we always think, "What about Lola?"
03:14 (Lola panting)
03:17 (water splashing)
03:20 (gentle music)
03:23 (gentle music)
03:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]