A pair of gay swans have been removed from a lake after they kept attacking swimmers as they protected their nest of colourful plastic cups they treated like eggs.

The swans attacked several people in the lake in Austria who had swam too close to the vicinity of their next and one victim was left with a 10cm gash as a result, the Daily Mail reported.

Although the swans were only protecting their ‘eggs’, the local mayor Franz Steinegger was contemplating having the birds euthanatised but opted to have the swans relocated to a rescue centre.

He said: “We had to act urgently. But I simply didn’t have the heart to have the two swans killed by a hunter.”

Instead the mayor called in Alexander Groder and his wife to move the swans to their rescue centre in Upper Austria.

Groder said: “It’s probably a case of two male swans who are in a relationship.”

The swans are set to be moved to a pond where they will have more room, but it’s not clear whether their nest of colourful plastic cups will be moved too.