Wimbledon, Morden & Mitcham
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Ivory picked for swan-friendly bridge
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| Ivory picked to protect swans |
The new Walton bridge is to be ivory-coloured to stop swans crashing in to it.
Along with the swan-friendly colour, the bridge's arches have been designed to cast a stronger shadow the birds can spot in flight.
Its support rods will also be fitted with temporary, brightly-coloured discs while the birds get used to the new structure.
Surrey councilor David Munro said swans had clipped the existing bridge, hitting lamp columns because they failed to see them.
The council asked staff from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust to help decide the most obvious colour for the bridge.
The colours were computer-modelled against different types of sky from bright blue to stormy before ivory was chosen.
The new bridge is expected to be finished by 2014 after Environment Secretary Hilary Benn approved the design in January.
1:42pm Tuesday 13th May 2008
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CommentPosted by: Nathan, dancing on 5:47pm Tue 13 May 08
Swan friendly it might be but take a moment to think of the poor elephants. How many are going to have their teeth removed to build a whole bridge ? How are they going to eat after some council jobsworth pulls all their teeth out ? Not to mention the cost ! How much is it going to cost us tax payers to build a bridge out of ivory I wonder, a small fortune no doubt ! Sorry but this sounds like a crazy idea to me, I thought it was illegal to trade in ivory too. Maybe a more sensible alternative would be to make it out of bones, there must be plenty of old bones laying about just waiting to be made into a bridge, it would look pretty cool too dont you think ?
Swan friendly it might be but take a moment to think of the poor elephants. How many are going to have their teeth removed to build a whole bridge ? How are they going to eat after some council jobsworth pulls all their teeth out ? Not to mention the cost ! How much is it going to cost us tax payers to build a bridge out of ivory I wonder, a small fortune no doubt ! Sorry but this sounds like a crazy idea to me, I thought it was illegal to trade in ivory too. Maybe a more sensible alternative would be to make it out of bones, there must be plenty of old bones laying about just waiting to be made into a bridge, it would look pretty cool too dont you think ?
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