A live trumpeter swan was nearly abducted from LaSalle Marina in Burlington on Monday, Halton police say.

Const. Steve Elms told CBC News concerned citizens in the area approached a police officer around 11 a.m., saying they saw a woman trying to put a bird in her vehicle.

They also told the officer they saw the woman trying to remove a tag on the swan's wing.

"It's a weird one for sure," Elms said.

Officers arrived and intervened. They spoke with the woman and "cautioned her in regards to harming animals," Elms said.

"No swan was taken or harmed," he added.

In the end, the woman did not face any charges.

They are an amazing species that was literally brought back from the dead. - Liz Benneian, Trumpeter Swan Coalition

That's because, Elms said, the swan is no one's property, and therefore can't be considered for a criminal theft charge.

The only possibility for an officer in that situation would be to lay a cruelty to animals charge, he said, but the swan was not harmed.

Liz Benneian, a spokesperson for the Trumpeter Swan Coalition, said her group also received reports about the incident.

"I cannot possibly imagine why someone would do that," she said.

The trumpeter swan was basically hunted out of existence in North America by the late 1800s. By the 1930s, their numbers were down to just 69 birds in a small flock in Alaska, Benneian said.

Hunting the birds was banned, and their numbers started creeping back up. Then in 1982, retired Ministry of Natural Resources biologist Harry Lumsden was the catalyst in bringing the trumpeters back to Ontario.

Lumsden was able to get eggs from northern Alberta and Alaska and convince some Ontario landowners to help raise the resulting young cygnets. Over time, enough were raised that they were released back into the wild. Now, there are about 1,000 of these bird in Ontario, the coalition says.

The first trumpeter swans to mate in the wild and migrate in Ontario in more than 100 years came to LaSalle Park in Burlington with their six cygnets back in 1993. LaSalle Park is now the largest overwintering site for these birds in Canada, Benneian said.

At their peak this past Family Day, there were about 200 swans in the park, Benneian said. Pairs of swans have now started heading for their nesting sites in northern Ontario as the weather warms.

"These are wild birds. People should respect them and keep their distance," Benneian said. "They are an amazing species that was literally brought back from the dead."

adam.carter@cbc.ca