Despite some major obstacles, the trumpeter swan is making a comebackin the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reportson the restoration of North America’s largest waterfowl:
Transcript
Despite some major obstacles, the trumpeter swan is making a comeback in the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the restoration of North America’s largest waterfowl.
The trumpeter swan is a long-necked graceful bird with a memorable call.
(Sound of trumpeter)
Experts say there once were 100-thousand of these birds in the Great Lakes region. By 1900 they were gone, most killed to use their feathers for hats.
Since the mid-1980’s several states have been working to restore the bird. But setbacks to the effort include accidental and vandalistic shootings, and the low-flying birds sometimes hit power lines. Sumner Matteson heads up the state of Wisconsin’s swan repopulation effort. He says there’s one more problem.
“What we’re more concerned about over the long term, the long haul, is the effect of lead poisoning on birds and that’s more of an insidious problem. It only takes one or two spent lead pellets to sicken or kill a trumpeter swan.”
Lead in shotgun shells is now banned, but there’s a lot of old lead shot in wetlands where the trumpeter swans feed. For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.