[mou] The Trumpeter Swan Society (TTSS) response to Bob Russell (LONG)

[Madeleine Linck]

>From Larry Gillette, The Trumpeter Swan Society (TTSS) Board member and
Wildlife Manager,Three Rivers Park District:

 

Bob Russell raised the question about the potential danger of the large
winter concentration of trumpeter swans at Monticello.  This is a
concern for TTSS and the Minnesota Nongame Wildlife Program as well.  It
is an issue we have been working to resolve for over a decade.  I'd like
to provide a little history.

 

In the winter of 1984-85, almost all of the trumpeter swans that had
been released by Hennepin Parks (now Three Rivers Park District)
attempted to migrate in December.  This was before the State of
Minnesota began its restoration program.  The swans wandered throughout
the South in small groups.  Over 1/3 of the birds died before returning
north in spring.  It was a devastating blow to the fledgling restoration
program.  The following winter, only a few swans attempted to migrate
with similar results.  The rest stayed in the North.

 

The first trumpeter swans found Monticello in the winter of 1987-88,
when 15 birds showed up.  The number of birds wintering there has been
growing steadily ever since.  There is no question that keeping the
swans in Minnesota has allowed the population to grow much more rapidly
than it would have if the birds had been forced to migrate.  It reduced
mortality and kept the swans in excellent breeding condition.  But the
trade-off was non-migratory population, which has become a concern as
the population has continues to grow.   

 

In February, 1996, I took a tour of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas
and Missouri, to look for suitable wintering sites for trumpeter swans.
I met with waterfowl managers in most of these states to get their
input.  To my dismay, I found that traditional aquatic habitat in these
areas was almost non-existent, despite millions of ponds, reservoirs and
rivers.  Although millions of geese and dabbling ducks spend the winter
here, they were dependent on field feeding.  Water is used primarily for
loafing and sleeping.  In addition, state waterfowl managers were not
excited about the prospects of trumpeter swans.  The swans could pose a
problem for waterfowl hunting if they were shot.

  

Almost every year since 1996, TTSS sent a representative to the
mid-winter Technical Committee meetings of the Central and Mississippi
Flyway meetings to try to generate support among state waterfowl
managers.  The initial reception was only luke warm in the Mississippi
Flyway and hostile in the Central Flyway, where there was concern that
the presence of trumpeter swans could jeopardize tundra swan hunts in
the Dakotas.  There was no opportunity to work on migration in this
atmosphere, and TTSS was reluctant to propose forced migration given the
results in the 1984-85 migration.

 

Between then and now, a few small migratory destinations have been
created in Illinois and Arkansas, with winter populations of over 100
swans at each site.  Unfortunately, unlike other waterfowl, trumpeter
swans do not migrate in flocks, but instead travel in family units.
Numbers of swans at wintering sites grow gradually as offspring learn
from their parents, and pass the knowledge to their offspring.  One swan
will not lead an entire flock.

 

Getting trumpeter swans to migrate is not as simple as stopping feeding
in the North.  Winter destinations need to be identified or created,
ways need to be found to get the swans there, and political obstacles
need to be overcome.

 

In recent years, resistance in the flyways has decreased, and several
southern states in the Mississippi Flyway have expressed an interest in
participating in establishing wintering flocks.

 

Within the next 2 weeks an experiment will begin to move juvenile
trumpeters from Iowa to Buffalo National River and Holla Bend National
Wildlife Refuge, which are both in Arkansas.  The project was developed
by TTSS with the full cooperation of the Iowa DNR and the Nongame
Program in Arkansas.  The hope is to establish 2 new winter destinations
and to test a potential mechanism to promote migration to them.

 

TTSS has met with MN DNR Nongame to discuss the migration issue.  While
we all share the concern of so many of the restored trumpeters staying
in the North, we are reluctant to try to force them to migrate before
adequate provisions have been made on the other end.  We are hopeful
that a larger percentage of the trumpeters nesting in Minnesota will go
south for the winter within a few years.

 

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