“Something went right” on the Flathead Indian Reservation in northwest Montana. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have been re-introducing trumpeter swans there for more than a decade. This year the reservation was home to eight breeding pairs, just short of the tribes’ goal of ten breeding pairs. Over 100 cygnets have been hatched on the reservation during the program.


The program’s success was in the spotlight this week when the Trumpeter Swan Society held a conference in Montana.

Read the story in The Missoulian here.


Background on the trumpeter swan from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s All About Birds.

Photo: Alaskan trumpeter swans. Photo by Donna Dewhurst, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.