YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — Yellowstone National Park (YNP) announced in a Facebook post on Friday, Nov. 22, that trumpeter swans are beginning to return to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) for the winter.
These swans are migrating from summer habitats north of the GYE. According to YNP, this largest species of North American waterfowl need a long water runway when taking off and are attracted to ice-free portions of the Madison, Firehole and Yellowstone rivers, as well as the nearby Henry’s Fork of the Snake River in Island Park, Idaho.
This is one of few species that migrate into Yellowstone in winter, as opposed to heading farther south.
This past September, eight Trumpeter Swan cygnets were released in YNP’s Hayden Valley as part of an ongoing restoration project with Wyoming Wetlands Society to increase territorial pairs of the species.
Douglas Smith, former wildlife biologist for Yellowstone National Park (YNP) who worked with wolves since 1994 and birds since 2008, previously told Buckrail that the GYE was the last stronghold of trumpeter swans in the lower 48 when they were nearly extirpated by 1930 due to habitat loss and hunting.
