The Return of the Swan
B1320
National Elk Refuge, Jackson Hole, Wyoming
The Trumpeter Swan is North America's largest waterfowl, weighing around 23 pounds and with a wingspread of 80 inches. Even with its large size it is also one of the most graceful of birds, and of all creatures. After a century of being hunted and displaced, as recently as 1935 there were only 69 individual Trumpeter Swans counted in North America (not including some unrecorded flocks in Canada and Alaska). With focused, almost flock-by-flock management and conservation, however, by the end of the twentieth century, there were nearly 35,000 of the birds on the continent.