Swan shot with arrow doing 'very well'

With any luck, this bird's swan song will be a long way off.

A mute swan found impaled by an arrow near a Riverhead park continues to recover at a wildlife center where it was taken Friday after kayaker Jim MacDougall rescued it.

"The swan's doing very well right now," Mark Lembo, executive director of the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays, said Sunday. "It was very touch-and-go in the beginning, but it's doing very well."

A relieved MacDougall, 52, of Wading River, visited the rescue center Sunday to check up on the swan, which he and his wife dubbed "Cygnus" after the swan-shaped constellation.

"It's a shame somebody would do this to a beautiful animal like that," he said.

The Suffolk County SPCA has announced a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who shot the swan.

"This was not an accident," said Suffolk SPCA Chief Roy Gross, who added that the swan had likely been shot several days before it was found. "This was like a hunting arrow. This was a deliberate act."

MacDougall said he came upon the injured swan on Friday afternoon as he kayaked east from the waters near the Long Island Aquarium and Exhibition Center in Riverhead.

He said he called Suffolk County Park Police from his cellphone while trying to corral the wounded swan to a shady spot under the Route 105 bridge, with the swan hissing all the while.

MacDougall waited with the swan until police arrived with someone from the Hampton Bays rescue center.

Gross said anyone with information can call the Suffolk SPCA anonymously at 631-382-7722.