By Todd Wilkinson
Just for fun, test your ornithological knowledge.
What is the heaviest wild bird in North America?
Which waterfowl species is the longest?
Which has a wingspan that can reach 10 feet across?
What flyer, vaunted for its angel-white plumage, was rescued from near doom a century ago, with the remote environs of Greater Yellowstone playing a starring role in its salvation?
The answer to each question is one and the same—Cygnus buccinator, the trumpeter swan.
The comeback of wild trumpeters ranks among the greatest feats of avian recovery in history—and it is yet another reason why Greater Yellowstone holds distinction for being a cradle of American wildlife conservation.
In many ways artist Helen Seay’s large twin-paneled wildlife mural located in downtown Jackson, Wyoming reads visually like a re-wilding hall of fame celebrating Greater Yellowstone’s unmatched record of accomplishments and still-intact biological diversity. The mural was commissioned by the local non-profit conservation group, Wyoming Untrapped, and is designed to elevate public awareness about our region’s famous living, breathing natural history.
Indeed, the trumpeter has earned its place in Seay’s metaphorical pantheon. However, many people standing in front of the artwork may not know why. Have you ever seen a wild trumpeter? Can you find the swans in Seay’s medley of species?
What bison, elk, moose and grizzlies represent in terms of being “charismatic mammalian megafauna,” trumpeters possess a similar status within Greater Yellowstone’s incredible cast of avians because of both their size and grace. Anyone who’s witnessed trumpeters descending out of the sky or spied them quietly gliding along, in silhouette, on a waterway understands their magnetic allure.
A male trumpeter is called a cob, a female is a pen, and young swans are known as cygnets. In North America, the trumpeter is one of three swans species; the other two being the more prolific tundra or “whistling” swan— C. columbianus; and the mute swan—C. olor introduced to this continent from Eurasia.
It’s easy to mistake trumpeters for tundra swans but, in addition to generally being larger, trumpeters have solid black bills while tundras have yellow markings below the eyes. (Mute swans have bright orange bills).
During warm months, it’s possible to spot a mating trumpeter pair on Flat Creek ponds north of the town of Jackson on the National Elk Refuge or making a stopover at the Oxbow Bend of the Snake River in Grand Teton National Park. Tourists in Yellowstone might observe them sailing through the geothermal mist above the Yellowstone, Madison or Firehole rivers, or nesting in an isolated park lake or pond.
Trumpeters are regularly observed feeding during winter in open water along the ice-rimmed Henrys Fork of the Snake in Island Park, Idaho and, in other seasons, lolling in local Idaho wetlands west of the Tetons. And they’re gaining a new inspiring foothold in wetland terrain of the Upper Green River Basin on the west side of the Wind River Range.
The predictability of sightings in Greater Yellowstone and beyond today could cause young generations of wildlife watchers to take the status of these fairy tale birds for granted.
Once upon a time, only a few generations ago, trumpeters nearly vanished completely from the Lower 48, due to thoughtless human behavior that placed them on same doomed trajectory as passenger pigeons and Carolina parakeets (both are extinct, which means they are gone forever). Here’s a compilation of historic references to where trumpeters used to occur throughout North America assembled by Dr. Don Hammer and includes references made by members of the Lewis & Clark Expedition and ornithologist/artist John James Audubon.
Like whooping cranes, which are still imperiled, trumpeters were decimated by commercial market hunters, settlers who killed them for food, and recreational sport shooters. They were nearly wiped out in the 19thcentury before the enaction of game laws and wildlife management based on scientific understanding of natural history, fair chase and appreciation for “public wildlife” and the necessity of habitat.
More than anywhere else, the dramatic turnaround for trumpeters is tied to two places—Yellowstone Park and, even more so, the remote western corner of Greater Yellowstone called the Centennial Valley in Montana. The Centennial is home to Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, a preserve established on April, 22, 1935 by President Franklin Roosevelt to essentially be an emergency room for trumpeters.
Back then, almost exactly a century ago, a survey by the National Park Service found that fewer than 100 trumpeters were known to exist in all of North America; nearly every one of them was in the tri-state area of Greater Yellowstone where they wintered. Some flew north in late spring to breed in Canada and then “headed south” to rare open water at Red Rocks and geothermally-warmed stretches in Yellowstone . Their navigations were extensions of an ancient memory of migration that likely went back thousands of years but was nearly erased by human killing of swans and destruction of safe habitat.
To emphasis how perilously low the number was, ponder it again: fewer than 100 individuals—only a percentage being females capable of reproducing; most of the swans concentrated on smallish pockets of open water; vulnerable to poachers and wildlife predators; potential disease outbreaks, ingesting lead ammunition, and the possibility that a few major bitter cold storms could freeze their habitat solid and wipe them out. (To put it in perspective, in Washington State, 95 trumpeters died in a single year at a local habitat complex from eating lead ammo deposited on the bottom of wetlands where they feed, even though lead shot had been banned 15 years prior).
Trumpeters are among a roster of public wildlife species that, were pre-emptive federal intervention not taken, and habitat not safeguarded by federal and state agencies, and foresighted laws not put in place, a lot of species we are lucky to still know today might either be gone, or only on display in zoos or private menageries, or no longer existing in viable populations.
Some avians in our world command a level of reverence that transcends human generations going back in time. Swans are one of them globally. White swans have been symbols of light, love, truth and held up as representing the archetypal ideals of the feminine; that’s why, for example, ballerinas selected to play the role of a white swan consider it a high honor. On the other hand, “black swan” events are considered portents—emblems of surprise disasters like disease outbreaks, financial crises, or wars.
Some avians in our world command a level of reverence that transcends human generations going back in time. Swans are one of them globally. White swans have been symbols of light, love, truth and held up as representing the archetypal ideals of the feminine; that’s why, for example, ballerinas selected to play the role of a white swan consider it a high honor. On the other hand, “black swan” events are considered portents—emblems of surprise disasters like disease outbreaks, financial crises, or wars.
Universally, in oral tradition across the ages, swans have been reference points. The trumpeter commands its own mystique and it appears in literature tied to Greater Yellowstone. Consider this pair of examples—one, an award-winning children’s tale, The Trumpet of the Swan, was written by E.B. White who was deeply moved by the harrowing story of what happened at Red Rocks and how close we came to losing them.
White is famously known as being the author of children’s book classics, Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. His fictional story about a trumpeter protagonist named Cob was popular in its day. And that book was mentioned in a different, more recent volume of nature writing, the wonderful Travels in the Greater Yellowstone, by Jack Turner, a revered Jackson Hole mountaineer, philosopher, and conservation-minded author.
Both allude to Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, one of three national wildlife refuges in Greater Yellowstone managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Turner’s natural history travelogue provides a thorough and entertaining tour of how the wild wonders of Greater Yellowstone are knitted together yet face many ongoing threats. While Turner was researching his book, he and his wife, Dana, went to Red Rocks on a pilgrimage to see trumpeters and some of the hundreds of species that benefit from federal legislation passed back in the 1930s that created the refuge. Red Rocks remains the best place to see swans in Greater Yellowstone.
In recent decades, some critics of the Endangered Species Act and environmental laws have claimed that focusing on recovering a single species is ineffective and inefficient. There is, however, strong evidence to the contrary, particularly when the aim is identifying and protecting “umbrella” species that, when their habitat is protected, it enhances the fortunes of hundreds of others.
Trumpeters are umbrella species in Greater Yellowstone, as are grizzly bears, prairie dogs, beavers, and cold-water trout fisheries.
While Red Rocks was set aside primarily for swans, it is home today to over 250 bird species—over 100 known to nest there and it includes around 20 nesting pairs of bald eagles. Other species calling it home are grizzly and black bears, wolves, elk, moose, mule deer, pronghorn, beaver, otter, wolverines and imperiled whooping cranes. In the waters and tributaries of Red Rocks, efforts are underway to bolster imperiled fluvial Arctic grayling and Westslope cutthroat trout.
An important ally in Red Rock’s ongoing conservation story are local ranchers who graze cattle in and around the refuge and who have put conservation easements on their adjacent private land that benefits roaming public wildlife. Arrayed together through the Centennial Valley Association. it’s a compelling example of a public-private partnership that works keeping wildlife and stewardship-minded people on the land. The Centennial Valley is considered a critical biological linkage zone connecting Greater Yellowstone with the High Divide Ecosystem, the High Divide with the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, and the Northern Continental Divide with the Canadian Rockies (part of the “Yellowstone to Yukon” corridor).
An important ally in Red Rock’s ongoing conservation story are local ranchers who graze cattle in and around the refuge and who have put conservation easements on their adjacent private land that benefits roaming public wildlife. Arrayed together through the Centennial Valley Association, it’s a compelling example of a public-private partnership that works, keeping wildlife diversity and stewardship-minded people on the land.
Nearly all of Greater Yellowstone’s major recognizable species move between essential seasonal habitats, but the natural history and behavior of trumpeters adds its own nuance to the puzzle of this region’s biodiversity. Other avian species winter as far south as the subtropics and then when days get longer and temperatures warmer wing to northern latitudes in North America where they breed and raise their young before heading south again in autumn. Some species of hummingbird, for instance, are examples of neotropical migrants.
So, yes, Greater Yellowstone was pivotal in securing the trumpeter population and in enabling numbers to rise. It’s also been a source for trumpeter transplant efforts elsewhere, the same as has happened with Greater Yellowstone elk, bison, and bighorn sheep.
Along the way, another fortuitous thing happened in the 20th century. Surveys revealed that other populations of trumpeters actually existed in remote Alaska, northern Alberta and a few other places. That brought a sigh of relief but it didn’t make up for the fact that trumpeters had been extirpated from most of their original range in the Lower 48.
The best insurance policy for reducing the risk of species loss to potential catastrophic events is to have viable populations dispersed over wide geographic areas. As the Greater Yellowstone subpopulation of swans began to slowly grow, birds from this ecosystem were restored to Minnesota and Wisconsin, as a joint effort between the Fish and Wildlife Service and Trumpeter Swan Society—the non-profit leader in trumpeter conservation— to re-establish anchor populations there.
Concerted efforts to safeguard habitat and halt hunting of swans over the last century were crucial. Trumpeters are protected today under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Trumpeter hunting was recently allowed in Utah but halted after an unacceptably high number of swans were killed. Each year, trumpeters are accidentally killed when they are mistaken for tundra swans which have established seasons in many states. Expanding the range of trumpeters isn’t easy because they are creatures of habit and have deeply-engrained homing instincts passed along from parents to young. It requires having to teach the birds how to re-learn migration behavior lost when their ancestors were killed by humans.
Scientists have gotten better with helping trumpeters re-establish new migration traditions and, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, trumpeter numbers nationwide have grown over 400 percent in recent decades. That’s obviously good news. According to the Trumpeter Swan Society, over forty percent (27,055) of North America’s trumpeter swans are part of the Interior Population comprising the Central, Mississippi and Atlantic flyways to the east of the Rockies.
Today, less than 20 percent of all continental trumpeter swans nest, breed, or winter in the Rocky Mountain Population. In 2015, there were a reported 11,700 trumpeters in this population. It’s ironic perhaps that in the core of the bioregion where they were rescued they face ongoing challenges.
As humans know, it can get cold in high elevations of Greater Yellowstone in winter and many lakes, ponds and stretches of river freeze over, shrinking available habitat, which can have perilous implications for wintering swans. Indeed, in years’ past, deep freeze conditions, especially when large numbers of birds congregated at the same place, led to die-offs. In some desperate winters, swans were fed emergency food rations which only increased their ties to certain areas.
A succession of courageous refuge managers at Red Rocks, organizations like the Trumpeter Swan Society, biologists in Yellowstone and local advocates like the formidable Ruth Shea, Bill Long and Susan Patla with Wyoming Fish and Game, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, Idaho Fish and Game, the Wyoming Wetlands Society and others have been passionately devoted to helping trumpeters discover the presence of other habitat and teach their locations to their young, so that they would more widely disperse. Both Patla and Shea were research fellows with the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative in Jackson. (Personal note: over the years I had hundreds of conversations with Shea and will never forget the winter of 1989 when weeks of severe cold threatened to kill hundreds of swans facing starvation and freezing to death along the Henrys Fork of the Snake River in Harriman State Park. Shea mobilized people to save them).
The best insurance policy for buffering trumpeters not only from the impact of extreme winter weather or habitat loss, but from deadly diseases and habitat that leave young birds vulnerable to predation is to have more swan safe areas. As an aid to private landowners, the late Dave Lockman and Patla wrote a guide for how private landowners create trumpeter-friendly nesting habitat.
Yellowstone Park once served as an important swan refugia, but the park environs do not guarantee persistence, especially as the climate changes. Significant risk factors remain. Looming large is a potential that should give every wildlife advocate a reason for pause. Trumpeter swans could become Yellowstone Park’s first resident species in modern times to no longer reproduce in the park. Read that line again.
Looming large is a potential that should give every wildlife advocate a reason for pause. Trumpeter swans could become Yellowstone Park’s first resident species in modern times to no longer reproduce in the park.
This possibility was raised in a paper published in the journal Yellowstone Science in 2011 and co-authored by P.J. White, Kelly Proffitt, Terry McEneaney, Robert Garrott and Doug Smith. The article was titled “Yellowstone’s Trumpeter Swans in Peril? Drastic Decrease in Resident Swans over the Past 40 years.”
In wildlife biology there is the phenomenon of source vs. sink. A stable population of animals can serve as a source for nearby areas; a “sink” is an area where the number of animals that die outpaces the number of survivors. Development and sprawl at Big Sky, scientists say, has turned it into a sink for grizzly bears and likely other species.
In the park itself, according to retired senior park biologist Smith, there 87 trumpeters half a century ago, including 17 breeding pairs, that inhabited the park during warm months but that represented a population peak and since the 1960s numbers fell into continuous decline. Trumpeters are featured on the cover of a recent book, Yellowstone’s Birds: Diversity and Abundance in the World’s First National Park co-authored by Smith, Lauren E. Walker and Katharine E. Duffy and published by Princeton University Press. (You can listen to a short interview with Smith by clicking here).
Variation in weather year to year—manifested as climate trends over time—can severely alter the amount of time trumpeters have to successfully reproduce. Heavy spring snowmelt and summer rains, for example, can flood nest sites, and/or when the number and size of wetland areas shrinks owed to warming and drying trends, nest sites and cygnets become more vulnerable to predators. The wildlife species that eat them include bald and golden eagles, owls, bears, wolves, coyotes, bobcats, otters, raccoons, foxes, and ravens. Swans continue to struggle in Grand Teton National Park, too.
Swans need 140 to 160 days to breed, rest, lay eggs, incubate and grow mature cygnets over the summer, and gain flight feathers affording lift off before ice arrives in the fall. “The best available scientific evidence suggests that [Yellowstone National Park] provides marginal conditions for nesting and acts as a sink for swans dispersing from more productive areas within the greater Yellowstone area. This effect has been compounded over the last several decades by natural changes in habitat (e.g., decreased wetlands due to long-term drought or chronic warming) and community dynamics (e.g., recovery of predator populations),” authors wrote in Yellowstone Science. “Thus, barring aggressive interventions (e.g., predator-proof fencing of wetlands, manipulations of hydrology) that would be inconsistent with National Park Service guidelines to minimize human interference, trumpeter swan presence in the park may be primarily limited to occasional residents and wintering aggregations of migrants from outside the park. We recommend that the National Park Service pursue a vision and agenda that centers on the challenges of a changing landscape, especially for the cooperative, integrated management of trumpeter swans with agencies controlling more productive areas within the Greater Yellowstone area.”
Smith said that the historic database pertaining to swans in the park rivals that of wolves and grizzly bears. Quietly, Yellowstone has experimented with reintroduction of swans to stabilize their small numbers, and to varying degrees of success.
The valiant spirit of swan conservation continues in the heart of Greater Yellowstone. In summer 2025, eight cygnet swans were released in Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley as part of an ongoing restoration effort led by Yellowstone and underwritten by Yellowstone Forever, the Wyoming Wetlands Society, the Ricketts Conservation Foundation, Greater Yellowstone Trumpeter Swan Working Group and Montana State University. Watch a short video documenting the release, below. Auspiciously, swans in recent years have begun nesting again on Swan Lake just south of Mammoth Hot Springs and can be viewed by people from a distance using long camera lenses and spotting scopes.
There’s a lot of infectious human goodwill surrounding trumpeters. Other emerging bright spots for trumpeters are the Upper Green River Valley in Wyoming through groundwork laid by Long and Patla and in eastern Idaho with restoration of nesting habitat being carried out by the Teton Basin Trumpeter Swan Restoration Project, a partnership involving the Teton Regional Land Trust, Idaho Fish and Game, Fish and Wildlife Service, Intermountain Aquatics, and other local partners.
What the story of trumpeters demonstrates is that perceived “biological recovery” is not a reflection of a particular snapshot taken in time, but based on having enough secure safe habitat to support the population of a given species going forward across time.
The rescue of trumpeter swans holds many lessons that can be applied to the way we think about other species. In the human-dominated world that continues to whittle away at wildlife habitat, and with many unforeseen emerging factors—could the spread of avian flu be a “black swan event” for wildlife and even humans?—perpetuating biological recovery requires constant vigilance and new generations committing themselves to conservation as their ancestors did.
Epilogue: below is a list prepared by The Trumpeter Swan Society that identifies the major ongoing threats to trumpeter swans. Ask yourself: how many of those trends are getting better or worse?
Top 10 Threats to Trumpeter Swans
- Lead poisoning caused by swans ingesting lead fishing tackle or pellets from shotgun shells used by hunters—both of which get deposited in the bottoms of pond where swans feed
- Collisions with power lines
- Loss of wetlands and diminished habitat quality
- Loss of farm lands caused by sprawl
- Lack of knowledge by swans of traditional migration routes to more southerly areas
- Illegal shooting
- Climate change negatively transforming habitat
- New diseases such as avian influenza and West Nile virus
- Human disturbance from residential subdivision, domestic dogs off leash and growing intensity of outdoor recreation
- Lack of funding for long-term habitat protection and weakening of regulations that protect wetlands
ALSO READ MORE OF THE ONGOING YELLOWSTONIAN SERIES WILD JOURNEYS WITH WU:
Harrowing Journeys: Stories Behind A Grand Animal Mural Coming To You In 2025
