By Drew Harwell, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Chipper and Dipper vanished from their mobile home park Sunday.
DUNEDIN — Chipper and Dipper were gone. The residents of Lake Highlander Mobile Home Park had seen them Sunday, floating as always atop their little lake. By 8 the next morning, they had vanished, leaving behind a single ruffled feather.
The park's prized swans couldn't have escaped, residents said. A wire fence surrounds the lake, the birds' wings are clipped and — well, why would they? Lakegoers spoiled them, swooned over them, liked to think the swans enjoyed the attention. "They're like a couple big kids out on the water," Tom Chapman said.
No, residents thought — this was much more sinister. Swan thieves must have scaled the fence, sedated the ornery, 60-pound birds and hefted them, under the cover of darkness, into a getaway truck. Some suspected shadowy ruffians from nearby Dunedin High School, believed to have also stolen a few park tricycles.
Residents began their search with a call to Bay News 9, which aired their pleas on a Monday broadcast. They said they had adopted the swans 15 years ago, when the park social club collected $75 for the 6-week-old cygnets and clipped their wings to keep them from flying away. With great fanfare, residents then released the swans into the lake. One of the lake's wild turtles, perhaps upset about the swans' popularity, bit a chip off one of the bird's beaks. The residents decided to name that one Chipper. The second they called Dipper, because it rhymed.
"Everything that we do revolves around the swans. Our letterhead. Our business cards. Our website," park manager Beth Carroll said. The swans are listed as the mobile home park's top amenity, beating out the shuffleboard courts. "They've become part of the family."
Around midnight Monday, Chapman was on neighborhood watch, riding his golf cart with its flashing yellow light, when he saw at the entrance a big black pickup. Inside the truck bed, under the topper, the swans sat quietly, looking dirty and a bit disheveled.
Two men in the truck, self-described duck hunters, said they had bought the swans on Monday from a couple of kids for $20. After the newscast, they plunked the birds in their pickup, drove to the park and called the Sheriff's Office. They also asked Chapman for $20.
Deputies won't name the suspects in the swan case, which is still under investigation, and residents aren't completely sold on the hunters' story. They're mostly just happy Chipper and Dipper are home.
"They seem to be okay. They're tough little boogers," said resident Nat Wright. "They're just maybe a little embarrassed, because they were dirty."
Contact Drew Harwell at dharwell@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6244.