A black swan that was apparently spotted feeding the fish at a popular theme park had online users worried they might have to start competing with the bird over a job.
The swan was filmed by an unnamed tourist as it stood beside a pond mouth-feeding the carp at Tang Paradise, a large theme park in the city of Xi’an, in north-western China’s Shaanxi province.
Footage – shared later on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok – shows the black bird dipping its bill into a metal bowl of food.
Then it turns towards the pond and sticks its bill inside the water as hungry carps wriggle around trying to snatch a bite.
The swan goes back and forth a few times while it eats some of the feed then shares it with the frenzied school of fish.
Thousands of Douyin users seemingly found the scene incredibly amusing, with many of them jokingly claiming the bird will leave professional keepers out of work.
One user titled ‘Qi Bao Daddy’ wrote: “The competition is so fierce, the establishment’s staff has been reduced by the swan.”
Another user titled ‘Ren Yu., Yu Tian’ commented: “Fish feeder: “You won’t believe it, I got replaced by a bird.”
And some users offered a different explanation, with one user titled ‘Anda’ saying: “It’s not that the swan is feeding the fish, it’s that the food the swan eats is too dry, just add some water to eat it.”
A similar scene was captured by a zoo goer when a caring duck had seemingly turned keeper to feed koi carp at an aquarium in the Chinese capital this spring.
Visitors to the Beijing Aquarium were astonished when they saw the koi queuing up to be fed by the bird.
Footage of the weird feeding time shows the grey bird dedicatedly dipping its bill into a plate of food.
Then it offers its bill to the carp, who greedily snap up every scrap.
The person who filmed the footage said none of the fish would approach the duck at first.
But it persistently stayed by the water, so the koi eventually came up and opened their mouths, allowing it to feed them.
Zoo staff claimed the duck has been living by the pond for three or four years and learned the technique by watching keepers and visitors.
