Release of 20 yearling swans bolsters return of species in Mission Valley

As 20 Trumpeter Swans filed out of a horse trailer Friday morning at Pablo Reservoir, Dale Becker could smile, knowing the next step had been taken to reintroduce the beautiful bird population in the Mission Valley.

“It’s always nice when this part’s done, but the job isn’t over yet,” Becker, Tribal Wildlife Program Manager for the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes, said.

Wiped out by hunting by the 1930s, Becker has spearheaded a movement over the last 14 years to bring back Trumpeter Swans to the Flathead Reservation, one of the only regions in the state the bird has traditionally thrived. Since 2002, Becker and his coworkers have released 162 swans on the reservation, with great success.

“They were a relatively common bird in the pre-settlement days, but as the fur resources tailed off in the mid-1800s, the Hudson Bay Company exported large numbers of swan skins,” Becker said. “As settlement happened, the birds were easy food, a good chunk of protein. They are relatively tame and docile so they’re easy to catch up to.”

Nowadays, the birds have a different predator: power lines. The highest incident of mortality, Becker said, comes from birds flying into the high-voltage utility lines. Because they generally fly at dusk or in the morning during foggy periods, the birds cannot see the lines and instinctually don’t recognize the threat. Trumpeter Swans are the largest waterfowl species in the United States, so their bulky, heavy build takes a while to get familiar with while flying. To combat the problem, Becker said he has worked closely with Mission Valley Power to install colorful Plexiglas markers on the lines as identifiers for the swans.

“It’s just a numbers game,” Becker said. “You’re putting birds out that have the survival skills to do what they have to do, but there are obstacles and each year there are losses.”

The losses don’t outweigh the successes, as visibly evidenced Friday morning. Several adult birds from previous releases paddled around the impoundment pond as the newest batch of swans fluttered into their first taste of life on their own. All 20 birds were captive bred and reared at several different facilities around the west, including with some assistance from the Montana Waterfowl Foundation, an organization located in Pablo. Becker said each bird had a wing clipped but that the feathers will grow back in four to six weeks, plenty of time for them to make their first flight sometime in September.

“When they start to fly, it’s like when you have kids who finish school, you just cross your fingers and hope for the best,” Becker said.

Most of the birds end up nesting in the winter on the lower Flathead River, somewhere between Dixon and Paradise. The swans aren’t usually migratory, preferring to stay in the area, aside from some birds that have ended up in Colorado or Alberta. Becker and Janene Lichtenberg, a wildlife mitigation biologist with the CSKT, applied neck and ankle tags to the birds to easier track their movements.

“We have about six, hopefully seven, nesting pairs in the area,” Becker said.

Much of where the swans end up depends on food availability. With all the rain the area has received this spring, Becker feared the birds’ primary food source, underwater vegetation, could be completely submerged. In the main Pablo Reservoir, some of the aquatic plants were eight or 10 feet underwater, which makes it hard for the birds to feed. The impoundment ponds behind the main water body have better food sources, and provide better protection, Becker said.

“They like muskrat houses, small islands or spits of land with heavy cover of bulrush,” he said. “They need to be well hidden from ground predators.”

The ponds at Pablo Reservoir seem to be perfect for the birds, and they enjoyed paddling around and making noise. Becker said there might be some “turfy stuff” between the new arrivals and the old guard, but that they’ll settle down and get used to each other. In the next few weeks, Becker has plans to release 14 more birds, a clear sign that the new generation of Trumpeter Swans is here to stay on the Flathead Reservation.

“We’ll come here every day for the next week or 10 days to make sure they’re doing alright,” Becker said. “Things worked out pretty well.”