It was too good to be true. Until last week, all seven cygnets — the offspring of the West Tisbury Mill Pond swans named Bob and Bobette — were happily swimming about with their parents. None had been struck by a car when they left the pond and dutifully followed their parents across the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road and then State Road. Traffic backups notwithstanding, the swans have been safely making the journey to the Whiting Pond in search of more grasses to eat, thanks to West Tisbury police chief Dan Rossi, officer Matt Mincone and Sgt. Skipper Manter. At crossing times in the late afternoon, Officer Mincone, who is on duty then, has been slowing down traffic with a radar gun.

But not even police protection could save one of the silver-gray cygnets from a hungry giant snapping turtle. Such turtles, weighing as much as forty pounds, are fellow Mill Pond denizens with the swans. Though the cygnets’ father can be ferocious, as humans who get too close know (including the town police), the snapping turtle was evidently undaunted by the male swan’s efforts to defend his young. West Tisbury animal control officer Joan Jenkinson, who imported the mother swan from Menensha and has been feeding the swans all winter, found not even a feather from the lost cygnet.

Mrs. Jenkinson knows that bread is not enough to satisfy a swan’s nutritional needs, so after eating up all the Mill Pond greenery, the swans and their offpspring went on the road in search of more.

Their next stop was Whiting Pond. But the pond has dried up in the recent heat, and swans require water with their food.

Now in a scene more than a little reminiscent of the classic Robert McCloskey children’s book Make Way for Ducklings, Bob, Bobette and family have been traversing the road between the two ponds in recent days, prompting the need for a police officer to direct the traffic that piles up around them every time they venture out.

The town police can keep the swans safe from cars and trucks, but snapping turtles are another story.