Recovery success fuels optimism for Blackfoot's Trumpeter Swans

Each spring, more than 150 students from schools within the Blackfoot Watershed meet up for a public swan release. This spring may have seen the last swan release for the Blackfoot Watershed.

The swan release program is a joint project of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Blackfoot Challenge, according to Elaine Caton, Swan Restoration & Education Coordinator for the Blackfoot Challenge. The program began with a Trumpeter Swan Habitat Suitability Study for the Blackfoot Watershed in 2004, in which 29 wetland sites of the more than 400 assessed were determined to be potentially suitable nesting sites.

"The goal of the project is to have at least seven successful nests for at least two years in the watershed," Caton wrote in a project summary provided to the BVD. With this goal in mind, the first Trumpeter Swans were released into the Blackfoot Watershed in 2005.

The swan release program recorded eight successful nests in 2019, and seven successful nests two years later in 2021, with over 20 cygnets born in the the watershed nearly every year since 2016. Although this does not meet the original goal of seven successful nests for two consecutive years, it is significant.

"The numbers of territories and nests have climbed slowly but pretty steadily since 2010, with the last few years seeing a steeper climb in the numbers of both," wrote Caton, adding, "We are assessing the need to continue to release captive-raised swans and considering that 2021 might have been the last release."

As part of the annual swan release program, teachers from watershed area schools get to hold a swan while it is banded and then release it. The Blackfoot Challenge provides educational stations during the swan release event to give students additional information about wetland habitats, aquatic macro invertebrates, plant communities, and other topics related to swans as well as curriculum for teachers to use in the classroom before and after the release.

"We've released from three to 43 birds each year, depending on the availability of captive birds, for a total of 217," Caton wrote, adding, "The only exception was 2017 when we decided to delay the release to the following year due to wildfire and smoke. In 2020, the release was not open to the public due to COVID, and in 2021, we again invited students from local schools to attend."

The birds for release are captive-reared at the Wyoming Wetlands Society facility in Jackson, Wyo. and are genetically related to, among others, birds from the Red Rock Lakes in Montana. The Red Rocks Lakes National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in response to area sitings of nearly half of the world's known population of Trumpeter Swans, according to the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge website.

Swans were first recorded in the Blackfoot Valley more than 200 years ago.

In July of 1806, Meriwether Lewis record a pair of swans near present-day Clearwater Junction. However, by the early 1900s, Trumpeter Swans were nearly extinct in the contiguous United States.

No records of residents swans in the Blackfoot Watershed existed again until a pair nested near the upper end of the region near Lincoln in 2003, wrote Caton.

Nearby landowner Louie Bouma noticed that the female was killed by a power line collision, and worked with biologists to transport the eggs to a breeding facility in the Mission Valley.

"Three cygnets were hatched and raised there until they were three months old. At the end of the summer, the cygnets were released back on the territory," wrote Caton. The male swan, who had summered in the area, immediately accepted the cygnets.

"They all migrated out of the valley together that fall, but we had no subsequent sightings of

them in the valley, and the male did not return to the territory the following year. But there was

a lot of excitement in the area around the fact that trumpeters were attempting to recolonize

the watershed," Caton wrote.

Since the first release in 2005, the program has identified 35 marked individuals that have returned to the watershed at least once after their release, and project staff have reported more than 3500 sightings of Trumpter Swans. The first two territories were established in 2010, with the first successful nests in more than 100 years identified in the watershed in 2011.

The Missoula Electric Cooperative has also supported the swan release program, donating employee time and effort to mark and bury power lines in areas where swan collisions are anticipated.

"Given all the support and excitement about swans from so many people and the successes we've seen so far, we're optimistic about the future of Trumpeter Swans in the Blackfoot," Caton wrote.