By Stan Tekiela
Trumpeter Swans
Recently I have been spending some time photographing a pair of Trumpeter Swans (Cygnus buccinator) with six little cygnets. This swan family is not in a wilderness setting but a suburban backyard pond. Wow, have things changed. First, when I started my career in wildlife photography 40 years ago there wasn’t any swans to be photographed let alone in a suburban backyard. They were extirpated, which is a term that means they were locally extinct. Like so many species, we humans did a great job at killing them off. Trumpeter Swans were hunted for their meat and for their beautiful white feathers. It’s estimated that a single swan has around 25,000 feathers covering its body, many of these are tiny down feathers which have great insulation qualities. They are a large bird, standing nearly 4 feet tall and have an impressive wing span of six to eight feet. They are the largest waterfowl species and the heaviest native bird in North America. Adults can weigh 20-30 pounds.
They were heavily hunted, and it was killed off in much of the United States by the year 1900. The same thing happened to so many other species such as Eastern Turkey and Whooping Crane. Many more suffered the same fate but from different reasons. Loons, Bald Eagles, Osprey and others were also nearly wiped out due to chemicals (DDT) in the environment along with massive habitat loss.
However, with the birth of the environmental movement in the 1970’s things started to turn around. Many federal laws were passed to protect these birds and other animals. At the same time, reintroduction programs were launched and many of these species have responded very quickly, and we are seeing the benefits of this combination of laws and work now.
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