In 2019, a mute swan from Malmö in Sweden gained notoriety for being aggressive towards boats and kayakers entering its territory. Multiple canoeists capsized as a result of its attacks. Its nickname: Swan Daddy.

It seemed like a routine job for the local council: an animal was causing a nuisance and had to be dealt with. Moving the nest the swan was protecting did not seem feasible, so the decision was made to shoot the bird – nothing out of the ordinary for the council’s wildlife manager.

However, by then, Swan Daddy had already gathered a loyal following of fans who admired the stubborn swan’s ‘devoted parenting’. The bird had gone from being a nuisance to a symbol of fierce fatherhood. 

And that was something the wildlife manager had never seen before. Just to be on the safe side, it was decided to shoot the swan at night. Everything would have gone smoothly had it not been for a chance passer-by who happened to see the dead bird being loaded into a car and shared a photo of the vehicle, including its number plate, on social media. The result: death threats against the shooters, criticism of the local council and memorials for the dead swan.

MEMES

‘There have always been famous animals’, says assistant professor of biology Tuomas Aivelo, who published an article in Digital Geography and Society with the telling title ‘Loved, loathed, and livestreamed: Celebrity wildlife as mediated governance objects in urban environments’.

‘In the past, animals only became famous through traditional media, which acted as gatekeepers’, explains the researcher. ‘Thanks to social media, the public now has a much greater say in which animals become famous. Through memes, people create a parasocial relationship with an animal, with all the consequences and new narratives associated with that. This leads people to humanise animals in all sorts of ways.’

Something similar happened in South Africa, where Kataza, a Cape baboon, was wreaking havoc in a residential neighbourhood. Aivelo: ‘Baboons don’t share food, so having one of them in your kitchen isn’t much of a problem. But when a whole troop comes in, it turns into utter chaos; they start fighting and smearing faeces on the walls.’

Although local authorities tried to relocate or euthanise the baboon, the local population fought back. ‘Kataza’s Angels’ kept track of the monkey’s whereabouts and tried to prevent wildlife managers from shooting or relocating him. The matter became particularly emotional because parallels were drawn with the forced relocations of people during the apartheid regime.

The latter is typical of how we, as humans, project our own stories onto animals, according to Aivelo. ‘We view animals through a human lens. They are used to tell a human story and become a sort of meme. Because Swan Daddy had become famous, his case attracted a huge amount of attention. Whereas normally, it would have been a routine job for the local council’s gamekeeper and nobody would have cared about any other swan being shot.

NEW MATE

Suddenly, the swan had become a martyr, an icon of devoted fatherhood. According to Malmö residents, his mate was extremely sad, as swans form lifelong pair bonds. Later, it turned out that the female had simply found herself a new mate after a year.

‘Famous animals can be good ambassadors for their species, making people more tolerant of animals living in their environment’, says Aivelo. ‘That’s good for nature, but it also makes wildlife management a lot more complicated and highlights the need for effective communication with the local population. Then again, social media isn’t exactly conducive to nuanced policy discussions, so you end up with situations like the hunter in Malmö being identified and receiving death threats.’

Unlike Swan Daddy, Kataza did have a happy ending. He was not shot, but released back into the wild 1,600 kilometres from Cape Town, where he is still living today. 

Aivelo and his colleagues found other famous animals whose stories had a happy ending, such as the Finnish eagle-owl nicknamed Bubi. One day, the bird flew into a football stadium during a match between Finland and Belgium, landed briefly on the pitch and then perched proudly on the goal.

‘Finland ended up winning that match, and people started saying that the Belgians had been frightened by the creature from the woods. I don’t know if it actually influenced the result of the match, but the owl became the mascot of the national team, which is now nicknamed The Eagle-Owls. In 2007, Bubi was named Helsinki’s ‘Resident of the Year’.

So not all famous animals need to fear for their lives, according to the researcher. ‘In Bubi’s case, the Finnish Football Association’s only concern was that UEFA might not approve of an eagle-owl flying around during matches.’