GREEN RIVER, Wyo. (AP) - Their big, white bodies dotted smooth sections of the Green River as the water curved through the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge. The swans gathered in groups and pairs, taking advantage of the refuge’s open water and abundant food.
More than 300 trumpeter swans are spending the winter on or near the national wildlife refuge, according to recent aerial counts by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. It is a record number and something biologists call a conservation success story.
Trumpeter swans were once abundant throughout North America. They lived as far north as Alaska and as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. But by the early 1900s, they were hunted to near extinction in the lower 48 for their meat and feathers, with a lone population remaining in the Yellowstone National Park region, said Susan Patla, nongame biologist with the Game and Fish Department.
Conservation efforts began in 1935 with the creation of the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Montana. Numbers slowly increased. Certain strongholds developed throughout the West, including the Snake River drainage near Jackson. Soon those areas started to reach carrying capacity. The wetlands simply couldn’t provide enough food and habitat to support that many birds.
Biologists knew they needed to help swans expand their range outside of the greater Yellowstone area in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, Patla said.
“We wanted to move them so they weren’t so far away so they would be isolated from the birds in the Yellowstone area,” she said. “We knew the Green River would have suitable habitat.”
Between 1992 and 1993, biologists transplanted 64 swans on the Seedskadee refuge. All but one female left. Swans traditionally learn where to migrate from their parents and follow the same path for life even if they are relocated.
Two years later, Game and Fish biologists brought in young swans, this time ones raised in captivity that would return to the Green River area during migration. The one female that had remained — distinctive because of a genetic mutation that gave her yellow instead of black legs — paired with a male and made a nest on the refuge.
Transplant efforts continued until 2002. More swans began nesting and reproducing on the refuge, adding to the population that returned each year, Patla said.
The female swan with yellow legs ultimately produced 35 young birds.
Refuge project leader Tom Koerner worked at Seedskadee in the ’90s and again now, following the swans’ expansion.
“A lot of people put a lot of energy into bringing trumpeter swans back in Wyoming, and it has been rewarding to watch that happen,” he said. “They are an iconic species. You don’t have to convince people to like trumpeter swans. They are cool birds and most people can instantly recognize them and know them.”
Biologists and land managers need to keep working together to help trumpeter swans, Patla said.
Game and Fish and Seedskadee recently received a more than $1 million grant to improve wetland and riparian habitat and conservation easements in the Green River basin.
The Wind River Indian Reservation worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Wyoming Wetlands Society to release five baby swans on the reservation and plans call for more.
“Our range expansion program in the Green River is a huge success for swans,” Patla said. “They’re a much more secure population than they were 20 years ago.”
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Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, https://www.trib.com
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