Towheeblog

No longer shot commercially, Trumpeters have started to come back. A 2015 estimate was for a world population over 60-thousand. Still hunters can find reasons to kill them, especially in red states where it is legal: “oh, is that a Trumpeter?” Click here.

In answer to the next question: “Swan seasons are open in eight states, ranging from Alaska, Montana, Nevada, and Utah in the Pacific Flyway, North and South Dakota (along with the eastern half of Montana) in the Central Flyway, and Virginia and North Carolina on the Eastern seaboard.”

The species now has it’s own dedicated conservation society–click here.

Here’s a summary of the conservation efforts to bring back a breeding population in Minnesota. Click here.

The Trumpeter is the heaviest wild bird species in North America.
Here are Trumpeters at Oregon’s Summer Lake. Photos by Kirk Gooding. Summer Lajke has anough water that adut Trumpeters could breed there again this year. Some eastern oregon lakes can no longer accommodate breeding swans. They last bred at Malheur NWR in 2017.

Here are two pictures from a lake in the Twin Cities area–courtesy Marc Reigel.