Well, we knew it was a possibility, but it's still a little sad: Those baby swans at the Palace of Fine Arts we told you about on Wednesday appear to have been consumed by a turtle, owl, or big-mouth fish.

The two young swans, who hatched a week ago today, had managed to duck their own demise once by emerging even after their caretaker had swapped their mom's eggs for some ceramic look-alikes to keep her from reproducing. However, it appears that there are things in the world more ruthless than a couple of pottery eggs, as the cygnets disappeared late this week, likely the meal of a bigger, badder animal in the area, the Chron reports.

Though Palace of Fine Arts swans have been slain by the hand of man in the past, Gayle Haggerty, their caretaker, seems to believe that this time the culprit is a natural predator. "I don't think it's foul play," Haggerty told the Chron (which admirably restrained itself from any "foul/fowl" puns). "It's a dangerous time for (the cygnets)."

In any case, Haggerty and her colleagues would have had to find the young swans somewhere else to go relatively soon, as by this time next year, their dad, named "Blue Boy," would have tried to kill them. It's hard out there for a young swan!