Trumpeter Swan

Cygnus buccinator

Following a brush with extinction, trumpeter swans are making a comeback in North America. In 1933, overhunting by early European settlers had reduced the numbers of trumpeters to just 77 breeding adults in Canada and 50 breeding adults in the United States. The swans were hunted for their prized skins and feathers, and their largest flight feathers were believed to make superior writing quills. Today, there are approximately 16,000 individuals in North America as a result of reintroduction programs, habitat conservation efforts and sanctuaries that have successfully complemented a ban on hunting.

Habitat: Freshwater and coastal estuarine wetlands; flooded agricultural land

Range: Primarily western North America Including, Alaska, Yukon, Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming

Trumpeter swans are the largest species of native waterfowl in North America. Adults of both sexes have white feathers and black bills, legs and feet. In adults, plumage of the head and upper neck is sometimes stained reddish brown from the high iron content of the water in which they forage for vegetation and sometimes fish. Young trumpeter swans, or cygnets, are typically grey with grey-pink legs, feet and bills. The brassy trumpet-like call for which the species is named helps distinguish trumpeters from the tundra swan, whose voice is softer and more melodious. The wedge-shaped bill of the trumpeter swan also helps to differentiate it from the smaller tundra swan, which has a sloped bill.

Trumpeter swans find mates at three to four years of age and typically mate for life. Once the nest has been constructed, females, or pens, lay an egg every second day until they have produced the full clutch, which averages five to six eggs. After hatching, the young cygnets stay in the nest with the pen for about a day until they are able to stay warm on their own. The young then remain with the adults until they return to the breeding ground the following spring.

Prior to the population decline experienced during European settlement, trumpeter swans bred throughout northern Canada and into the southeastern United States. Today, biologists recognize three populations of the species. The Rocky Mountain population consists of a few thousand birds that breed in the Rocky Mountains of Canada and the United States and winter in the area where the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming meet. Winter habitat is particularly limited for the Rocky Mountain population, and the crowded conditions create a physically stressful situation, in which food is limited and the potential for a severe disease outbreak exists. The Interior population consists of less than a thousand individuals, and includes restored flocks in South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ontario. The largest group, the Pacific Coast population, breeds in Alaska and winters along the coasts of Alaska, British Columbia and Washington. So impressive are these great birds that in some B.C. communities, such as Comox on Vancouver Island, the trumpeter swans generate tremendous local interest and increase tourist activity within the areas they winter in.

While the numbers of trumpeter swans have increased steadily, the species still faces a number of threats, with the loss of migratory traditions and reduced quality and quantity of winter habitat being chief among them. In British Columbia, where significant numbers of these swans winter, Ducks Unlimited Canada has been very active with on-the-ground habitat conservation programs that have great benefits to swans. With the continuation of these conservation efforts, the future should remain bright for the trumpeter swan.