Waiting for ice out

A pair of trumpeter swans already appears to be staking out their nesting territory in advance of open water. The weather forecast is calling for abnormally high temperatures in the next 10 days so ice out on this wetland seems plausible.

Trumpeter swans are Minnnesota’s swan, breeding here and overwintering at open water sites. The smaller tundra swan migrates briefly through the state mostly in the fall.

We are blessed today to have Trumpeter Swans as a regular waterfowl species in Minnesota. Like many birds and animals in the late 1800’s, mass hunting decimated the swans almost to extinction in the lower 48 states. According to the Minnesota DNR:

Trumpeter swans originally graced wetlands across a broad region of North America from Illinois northwest to Alaska. Throughout the 17- and 1800s, swans were hunted for their meat, skins and feathers. At the same time trumpeter swan habitat diminished as settlers moved across North America. By the 1880s, trumpeter swans disappeared from Minnesota. By the 1930s, only 69 trumpeter swans remained in the lower 48 states, living in the remote Red Rock Lakes area in southwestern Montana.

Trumpeter swans were hunted for their meat, their down, their swanskins (used as ladies powder puffs) and their long quills which were preferred for writing.

In the 1960’s, Hennepin County Park District obtained 40 swans from the Red Rock Lakes Refuge to start a reintroduction of the species. The program had many struggles with swans being shot, succumbing from disease and injury and even a few were stolen. Beginning in 1986, the Minnesota DNR started working with the Park District to boost the population by rearing young swans from eggs collected in Alaska. It was quite a successful undertaking by dedicated wildlife managers. In just 35 years, Minnesota’s swan population is now an estimated 50,000 birds. The incredible story of this concerted effort can be read here: Vision of Swans.

Like the bison, it is nice to see a species rebounding from near extinction that occurred during the widespread exploits of the late 19th century. Trumpeters today face threats from lead poisoning due to lead fishing sinkers and lead shot they can ingest while foraging on the bottom for aquatic plants. According to the DNR “about 40 percent of Minnesota's trumpeter swan fatalities are caused by lead poisoning”. Providing good habitat is also important, the swans like to nest in large wetland complexes with limited human disturbance.