Yes, we feel your pain. The Fish & Game departments are useless when it comes to mute swans as most derive their funding from the United States Fish & Wildlife Department which directs what can and cannot be deemed as native wildlife or what can or cannot be helped. Funding for programs drives wildlife concerns!

Obviously, you do not want to put yourself or anyone else in danger. Thin ice can easily give way as you well know, which could trap a person and even result in drowning. So, trying to access the ice would not be a good idea. The swan is not going to go into a box on its own and will probably shy away from anything unfamiliar on the ice. One good gust of wind and the swan would be scared for sure.

The best recommendation that we would have is to try and break the ice (approximately 20 x 20 feet) around the nearest bank so that the bird has water with its food and some way of protecting itself. Left on the ice it is either going to starve, drown or a predator is going to try to walk across the ice and get to the swan. If you can break the ice in an area to provide food and some shelter from predation, this is about the only thing you can do short of luring the bird and capturing it by hand. If you can get a wildlife rehabber to help you, this would be the ideal situation.

The swan should be fed a mixture (50-50) of cracked corn and poultry layer pellets. DO NOT use scratch or any other such food as it is not nutritional for the swan. You might also add some lettuce to provide the swan with some vegetation. Let us know how this progresses. The Regal Swan