A Pet's View / May 2007
Cygnetures
Swans are the largest, and for many appreciative viewers, the most elegant, of all waterfowl. Once just another dinner poultry, swans are more likely now to be welcome guests and inhabitants of parks and estates, adding beauty to the landscape.
Northern Hemisphere swan species are pure white in plumage while Southern Hemisphere species are patterned with various amounts of black. In the wild, swans live about 20 years but in captivity, may live 35 years or more.
They usually mate for life, though “divorces” do happen, usually following nesting failure. If one swam dies, the survivor usually takes a new mate and remains devoted to their new partner.
The swan’s strong legs and large webbed feet are accompanied by long, sharp claws, used to dig up roots or produce water currents to wash mud from roots. The currents also bring food to the surface, important for getting food to cygnets, the young swans.
A swan’s bill has scissor-like cutting edges which tear underwater grasses. They stay underwater 10 to 20 seconds at a time. Because their neck has 24-25 vertebrae (compared to 19 for flamingos and 7 in giraffes), swans can dip their heads and curve their necks into an “S” shape, so they may lay their chins flat along a lake or pond bottom.
Swans molt annually, which renders them flightless. Parenting partners molt at different times so one adult is always capable of flight while rearing cygnets. According to Wildlife Conservation, swans have about 25,000 feathers.
Of three North American swan species, Trumpeter and Tundra swans are native. The Mute swan is a Eurasian species introduced here which now breeds in the wild.
Trumpeter swans may have an eight foot wingspan and weigh 20-30 pounds. They remain near open water for their preferred diet of aquatic plants and insects. Mature swans consume up to 20 pounds of food daily. Their nests, 6-12 feet in diameter, can take two weeks to complete and swans often return to the same nest. Cygnets weigh about 7 ounces at hatching. In four months, they reach about 15 pounds and begin flying lessons.
Once abundant through much of North America, trumpeter swans were nearly extinct by 1900, killed for food, their skins used in powder puffs, their feathers used in fashionable hats, clothing and pens, their wetland habitats lost. The last 200 Rocky Mountain trumpeters survived by wintering in the Yellowstone wilderness near warm springs.
In 1932 only 69 trumpeter swans were known to exist in the lower 48 states. A national wildlife refuge was established and an international program initiated to protect swans and their habitat. Restoration and management programs have gradually increased trumpeter swans to around 3000, but they remain the rarest of native American waterfowl.
Now swans face new problems - lead poisoning, habitat loss, and the loss of their traditional migration patterns to southern wintering areas. Until their migrations are restored and they’re returned to suitable wintering areas, their future remains uncertain.
Tundra swans, smaller and more melodious, are the continent’s most abundant swans. With a migration route stretching 3,000 miles or more, tundra swans can spend nearly half their lives migrating. They prefer night travel and fly an average speed of 30 mph, about 160 wing flaps a minute, at elevations of 2-5,000 feet. Each fall, 65-75,000 swans migrate to North Carolina. Another 25,000 swans winter in other North Atlantic states.
That anyone would wish to kill a swan seems unfathomable, but swan hunting permits are issued in North Carolina, North and South Dakota, Virginia and Montana. Tundra swans are credited with the original “swan song,” the call made by a mortally wounded swan as it falls from the sky and frantically tries to rejoin its companions.
Tundra swans are accustomed to adversity but they’re treading an ecological tightrope. A long migration route and a short breeding season offset their advantage of isolated breeding grounds. The casualty rate of cygnets from cold and starvation is high. They face harsh conditions, exhaustion, fungus and viral diseases. Additional challenges include water pollution, water diversion east of the Rockies and diminishing food supplies at their wintering grounds.
Mute swans are generally non-migratory. They are easily distinguished by their bright orange bill and distinctive forehead knob. Although quieter than some other species, they are by no account mute. They snort loudly when annoyed, trumpet shrilly when angry, and are not above an aggressive hiss. Semi-domesticated in Europe for centuries, in Britain, Mute swans were once Crown property.
In America, they are, and should be, a public treasure. PL
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