Swan Conservation

In This Page:

• Historic Range and Near Extinction
• Return of the Trumpeter - Early Conservation
• Trumpeter Swans Today
• Current Status and Needs

Historic Range and Near Extinction

Trumpeter swans traditionally summered and bred across North America from half way down the lower 48 states of the USA up to the Arctic Circle.  But starting in the 19th century, they were pushed towards extinction - in part by westward-expanding human settlement and accompanying habitat loss and subsistence hunting, but chiefly by commercial hunting for the fur trade.  They were extirpated from eastern and central North America. 

A summer survey in 1933 in the tri-state area south of Alberta – in Yellowstone National Park and just west at Red Rock Lakes - could find only 66 trumpeters, including only 10 breeding pairs.  However, unknown and unsurveyed then, a few survived elsewhere as well.  Around 1949, 78 were observed in the Grande Prairie region and the Canadian Wildlife Service has kept count of this flock since then.  Not until 1979 was it discovered that the Alberta trumpeters join the sedentary US birds to overwinter in the tri-state area.  Together, these two subpopulations are known as the Rocky Mountain Population. 

Meanwhile in the Alaska region, a small remnant flock was noticed on the Copper River delta in the summer of 1954, and 1124 were counted in the region in an aerial survey in 1959.  These are known as the Pacific Coast Population.

Return of the Trumpeter – Early Conservation

Trumpeter swan conservation involves enough heroic stories to fill an entire book!  Concern for the plight of the trumpeter swan goes back to the dawn of the conservation movement and the 1890s when Yellowstone National Park was created and trumpeters were found there.  In 1916, Canada and the United States signed the Migratory Bird Convention, agreeing to protect North American birds.  Then in 1917, Canada passed its Migratory Bird Convention Act, and in 1918 the USA its Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which enabled protection to be carried out.  Under this legislation, hunting of all swan species was banned throughout North America.  However, swan numbers continued to dwindle, due to what had now become illegal hunting.  It was not until the USA put its National Wildlife Refuge system in place in 1929 and allocated it funding in 1935 that wildlife officials were able to get the problem under control. 

Copyright Randy Vanderveen, all rights reserved

The Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge came into being in 1935 specifically to protect the trumpeter swan Rocky Mountain Population and their core habitat – habitat used year-round by the American birds and in winter by the migratory Canadian ones.  That is when a major restoration program began – an amazing story in itself involving much danger, courage, and perseverance on the part of the wildlife staff involved.  The program included winter feeding to ensure higher survival rates.   Later on, as the swans multiplied, some wintering trumpeters were captured, then released into suitable habitat in Oregon, Utah, and California in an effort to establish new wintering areas and avoid overcrowding and starvation in the Rocky Mountain Population’s core winter area.  However, this particular program proved a failure.  Hence, as Rocky Mountain numbers continued to climb, both the feeding and the translocation programs were discontinued in the 1990s.

In British Columbia, Ducks Unlimited started a project in 1991 whereby fields of grass are planted each October as winter feed for  the growing number of Pacific Coast trumpeter swans wintering around Comox on Vancouver Island.  There is now a similar project on the mainland, too. 

Once the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain populations could spare a few birds, wildlife officials began the first reintroduction of trumpeter swans into the range of the vanished Interior Population.  So it was that in September 1960, the first 20 cygnets were taken from Red Rock Lakes NWR to their new home at the edge of the sandhills of South Dakota.  The success of this program led to trumpeter swan reintroductions in eight more eastern states and then, in 1982, in Ontario.  

Then, in a 1991 fire survey, trumpeter swans were found to have migrated all by themselves up from South Dakota to summer in the Greenwater Provincial Park area of Saskatchewan, near the Manitoba border.

In January 2004, Harry Lumsden was awarded the Order of Canada for his decades of work in conservation and for reintroducing the trumpeter swan into Ontario.  You can’t get a higher honour than that!

Trumpeter Swans Today

As the years have gone by, swan counting has become far more rigorous, coordinated, and widespread, yielding better-quality and more accurate data.  Most surveys are done from the air, with support from ground counts in some places.  These large, white birds are relatively easy to count, if time and money are available to do the job.  Nonetheless, the figures still represent simply our best efforts at seeing and counting trumpeter swans and so are best estimates of the actual numbers. 

Starting in 1968, a coordinated North America-wide survey began.  It now takes place every five years – the latest in 2000 – wherever trumpeters are known to be, or in areas into which they are expected to be expanding. 

The late-summer survey results for 2000 revealed 17,551 Pacific Coast, 3,666 Rocky Mountain, and 2,430 Interior Population trumpeter swans, for a total of 23,647 swans.   The 3,184-strong Canadian portion of the Rocky Mountain Population has now expanded into northeastern British Columbia, the eastern part of the Yukon, and the southwest Mackenzie District of the Northwest Territories.  The annual February count on the Rocky Mountain Population’s wintering grounds revealed 4,584 trumpeters in 2004.  Of these, 9 out of 10 were the Canadian migrants. 

As trumpeter swans increased within Alberta and young adults sought nesting lakes of their own, small new flocks began forming in the province.  Today we have eight flocks. They are listed below with count data from 2000:

Even so, the core Grande Prairie flock, which continues to grow, still accounts for two-thirds of all Alberta’s trumpeter swans. 

Only 92 were counted here in 1957, but the numbers have been slowly growing:

Exciting things are happening with the Interior Population as well.  In the mid-1990s, ultra-light aircraft began to be used to teach trumpeters their long-forgotten eastern migration routes.  And today, trumpeters are expanding their range north into eastern Saskatchewan and western Manitoba all by themselves!   Ontario’s restoration program  involving hand-raising is fairly successful, with 56 breeding birds and 42 others ready for release in 1996.  This program continues and with natural expansion of the established breeding birds, the population continues to grow.  The Interior Population  survey of 2000 revealed  2,430 swans and as of April 2004 it was tentatively estimated to number around 4,500.

Current Status and Needs

When trumpeter swan numbers were very low across Canada, the federal government’s Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) granted them Vulnerable status.  Then in 1996, when numbers had considerably improved, notably among the Pacific Coast Population, the status was changed nationally to Not at Risk.  However, the Rocky Mountain Population still remains very small and on its wintering grounds remains at considerable risk of a population crash.  Therefore in Alberta the trumpeter has Threatened status under the province’s Wildlife Act.  For this reason, the government has formed a trumpeter swan recovery team which is drafting a recovery plan for this species within our province.

The ban on the hunting of all species of swan in North America that was put in place in 1917 and 1918 remains in effect to this day throughout Canada and in all but nine states in the USA.  In those nine states, tundra swan hunting has been reintroduced, in response to pressure from hunters as tundra swan numbers increased.  (Today, the tundra’s numbers fluctuate between 140,000 to 200,000).  This creates problems for the trumpeter swan where their use of habitat and flyways overlaps the tundra swan's, because the two species look so alike. 

Two big issues face the Rocky Mountain Population trumpeter swans we see in Alberta.  One of them is the overcrowding and potential for death from disease and starvation on their wintering grounds in the Tristates area, now that their increasing numbers overwhelm their tiny historic haven.  They need to migrate further south to expand their use of available winter range to include the extensive Bear River Refuge in northern Utah, with its milder climate and abundant food.  Unfortunately, however, each winter a tundra-swan hunting season opens on the Bear River Refuge.  The result is that any trumpeters may be shot there by mistake.  The US Wildlife Service is caught in an unfortunate conflict of interest here, torn between maximizing tundra hunting opportunities and restoring trumpeter swan numbers.  Widespread, outspoken public support for trumpeter restoration is needed to tackle this situation.

Despite ongoing conservation efforts, Trumpter Swan habitat is still destroyed or disturbed.  Co-operation is required between local, provincial, and federal government, private industry, and citizens to ensure the long-term survival of the Trumpeter Swan in Alberta.

Caution to Hunters:

Hunters do not always recognize swans, though their large size and all-white plumage is like no other waterfowl. In Canada there is a maximum fine of $100,000 or 5 years in jail for shooting a swan.

Though they may not be the target of the hunter, shooting over lakes where there are swans disturbs them. Steel shot is now required for shooting waterfowl, but swans can still pick up old lead shot from lake bottoms. They need fine gravel to grind the food in their gizzards, and when picking up gravel they can also pick up lead pellets, causing death.

Power Lines:

Throughout North America power lines are the swans’ worst hazard. Most utility companies will lessen the danger if they know that swans nest near their power lines.

Preservation of lakes and sloughs: 

Encourages more nesting.