CODY ENTERPRISE

Trumpeter swans wing into Yellowstone

By Victoria O’Brien, Editor victoria@codyenterprise.com 

The Wyoming Wetlands Society has released nine trumpeter swans in Yellowstone National Park on Alum Creek and, in a first since the program’s inception, in the Lamar Valley.

The restoration program was carried out by Wyoming Wetlands Society (WWS) biologists in partnership with Yellowstone and Wyoming Game and Fish on September 10. Six cygnets were released in the Alum Creek area while three were introduced to a lake in the Lamar Valley, marking the first time in 50 years that trumpeter swans have inhabited the area.

Bill Long, a Jackson-based wildlife biologist and WWS program manager, said the program has proven successful.

“For 38 years, we’ve released the swans into various reintroduction programs throughout the state,” he said. “We’ve been able to create a second flock in Grand Teton and are now working to increase our understanding of the swans migration to southern states.”

WWS partnered with state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Geological Service’s Bird Banding Laboratory, to study the habits and behaviors of the birds. Yellowstone National Park (YNP) officials said nearly all Rocky Mountain trumpeter swans – including several thousand that migrate from Canada – winter on the ice-free waters of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. 

Trumpeter swans, which are the largest species of waterfowl in North America, require a long runway for takeoff and the GYE’s hydrothermal areas keep sections of rivers and lakes from freezing, making the swans one of the few species to migrate into Yellowstone during the winter months. With limited space to accommodate the growing population of birds, YNP has noted more swans are migrating to lower elevation wintering grounds outside of the park’s boundaries – a movement that WSS hopes to learn more about through its GPS-tracking program.

Long said the current goal is to expand WWS research and has encouraged the public to look for the black and yellow tarsal bands on a swan’s leg when they are on land, loafing or tip-feeding in the water – when a swan tips forward and submerges its head underwater to feed, but the legs remain visible above. With sighting, the public may report the bird and the unique number on its band by visiting reportband.gov.

Reintroduction efforts

Founded in 1986, WWS releases swans in areas that historically were home to healthy trumpeter swan populations. Trumpeters were once widespread with nests from Alaska to northern Mississippi, but, as a consequence of habitat destruction, hunting and the fur trade, they were nearly extirpated in the lower 48 states. Beginning in 1929, the National Park Service conducted a survey to determine the population and discovered that just 69 birds remained in the contiguous United States with 31 swans in YNP, 26 on Montana’s Red Rock Lakes and 12 others throughout the region. The discovery of several thousand previously unknown swans on Alaska’s Copper River aided early restoration efforts that used swans and eggs from the Red Rock Lakes flock.

In 2015, the Trumpeter Swan Society (TSS), estimated the swan population to be greater than 63,000. Still, threats exist, with WWS noting that habitat loss, poaching, accidental hunting take, poisoning, competition for limited resources and genetic bottlenecking are potential risks to the swan populations. Historically, TSS found the Rocky Mountain Population, which includes the birds living in the GYE, to be genetically isolated from other flocks.

Since its inception, WWS has collaborated with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a captive breeding program with rigorous genetic standards. It remains the only captive breeding program permitted to reintroduce swans inside of YNP and, since 2012, has released over 60 swans in the park. Throughout the Yellowstone area, WWS has released over 900 swans.

In addition to its work in the GYE, WWS has reintroduced trumpeter swans to Green River and the Wind River Reservation, with the first swans introduced to those areas in 1994 and 2013, respectively. In 2018, one of the swans introduced to Wind River became the first nesting swan on the reservation in over 150 years. More recently, WSS and G&F have initiated the Big Sandy Swan Range Expansion Project, a 10-year program to establish alternate migration patterns and wintering grounds south of Wyoming. The program will sunset in 2034.