56 Nebraskaland • June 2020
cygnets more than 100 days to grow
feathers and attain flight. During this
period, adults will undergo a wing
molt, rendering them flightless.
Trumpeter swans were nearly
extirpated from North America by
the end of the 19th century. Euro-
American settlers hunted them for
food and market hunters targeted
them for fashion and supplies: soft
swanskins were turned into powder
puffs, quills were made into ink pens
and feathers adorned hats. By the
time the Migratory Bird Treaty Act
was passed in 1918, giving swans
protection, only remnant populations
remained. Yet the decline continued.
The last record of a swan in Nebraska
came from Holt County in 1928. By
1932, only 69 swans were known to
exist in the lower 48 states, with all
of those found in remote locations
around Yellowstone National Park.
Others were later found in remote
parts of Canada and Alaska.
From those remnant populations
in the Greater Yellowstone area,
trumpeter swans were reintroduced
into other western states beginning
in the 1930s and 1940s. That work
resumed in the early 1960s, when
57 cygnets were placed at LaCreek
National Wildlife Refuge near Martin,
A female swan sits on its nest at Cottonwood Lake SRA as its mate hangs in
the cattails nearby.
A flock of trumpeter swans flies low over a frozen Calamus Reservoir in Loup County, a major wintering area for swans.
