For the first time, a pair of trumpeter swans, the comeback kids of the waterfowl world, was released in Illinois. The last known nest of the rare and stunning swans, the largest native waterfowl species in North America, was recorded in the 1840s near Glenview.
Since then, the story for trumpeters in Illinois mostly has been bleak.
Virtually wiped from the landscape in the late 1800s and early 1900s by hunting and settlement, clusters of trumpeters surfaced in remote mountain valleys of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming in 1919 and 1932. Three years later, the U.S. government established Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Montana and swans from that refuge became the heart of Midwestern restoration in the late 1960s.
Trumpeters are making a robust recovery, particularly in the areas east of the Rocky Mountains, including the Midwest. The latest U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey, conducted in 2005, showed the population in these areas at nearly 4,700, or more than 90 percent higher than the estimate five years earlier.
The reason for the rapid growth is that trumpeter-friendly habitat has existed in the Midwest for decades, and once the species was introduced, it adapted and grew swiftly, said Mike Eichholz, assistant zoology professor at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and the principal investigator on researching trumpeters in that region.
About 400 trumpeters migrate for the winter to southern Illinois from Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, Eichholz said.
It remains unclear whether the female trumpeter from Brookfield Zoo and male from Lincoln Park, both of which honked and hissed and struggled until they got into the water, will set up nest-keeping in Johnson-Sauk. But the 55-acre open water with marshes presented an encouraging landscape.
The eight bonobos at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa howled Tuesday as they watched two trumpeter swans dip into a lake for the first time. Who can blame them? Not only will the apes get new neighbors, they'll get a chance to name the rare birds. "They were very excited," said scientist Karyl Swartz. "It's something new in their environment."Department of Natural Resources officials released the white swans as part of a restoration project that places birds to nest and produce offspring that are then released into the wild.
Trumpeter swans are America's largest waterfowl, weighing up to 35 pounds with an 8-foot wingspan. They are Iowa's only native nesting swan.
Once common across much of the continent, they were hunted for their feathers to near extinction by the late 1800s. The swans now have protected status, and their population has grown with help from nesting projects.
The Great Ape Trust's grounds include 40 acres of lakes and wetlands, making it a perfect spot for the swans. And the birds will give the bonobos at the trust an interesting distraction.
"They're going to be curious about what's going on down here," Swartz said. "They monitor their environment closely."