Janie DeJoode, junior in psychology, was jogging down Lincoln Way one afternoon in the fall of 1998 when she saw a trumpeter swan by the side of the road.

“I stopped running, and the thing came up to me and spread its wings open,” she said. “It looked like it was going to attack me, and it tried to bite me so I pushed it away and took off.”

Acts of aggression similar to what DeJoode experienced is just one reason why Lancelot and Elaine, the trumpeter swans residing in Lake LaVerne, are being replaced with European mute swans next spring.

“The swans we have out there now are very aggressive,” said Brenda Van Beek, adviser to the Trumpeter Swan Restoration Committee. “Mute swans are very calm and will take bread right out of your hands. These trumpeter swans are not that type of swan.”

In addition to anti-social behavior, the trumpeter swans often wander away from the lake, creating a danger to themselves and others.

Van Beek said the swans had to be fenced in during 1998, which caused a burden on facilities maintenance workers who had to maintain the area.

The swans didn’t appear happy in their small, fenced-in area, she said.

However, since university administrators wanted to protect both the swans and the people, Lancelot and Elaine would have to remain confined.

“We don’t want the swans biting a small child or getting run over,” said Warren Madden, vice president for business and finance.

Madden said it was decided in a meeting this summer that either the swans had to be replaced, or the university had to “fence in all of Lake LaVerne, and that really wasn’t an option.”

The decision to remove the swans was made by students from the swan committee and members of the facilities staff.

The final consideration in the removal of the swans was the burden they caused on the maintenance committee.

“Since they had to put that fence up to keep the swans in, the facilities maintenance people had to do the string trimming, mowing and all that stuff,” Van Beek said. “Getting inside there to do any landscaping and stuff was problematic.”

Van Beek said the mute swans were chosen because they were gentler, quieter and they tended to stay closer to home. This will allow ISU officials to remove the fence surrounding the lake.

Mute swans are not new to the Iowa State campus; they were the official waterfowl of the ISU campus from 1935 until 1995.

In 1995, the university decided to take part in the state’s trumpeter swan restoration program by placing young trumpeter swans in Lake LaVerne.