No swan song for the trumpeter

"I see them," the pilot, John Bronson, radios down to the group of seven kayakers. "Pair of trumpeter swans and a cygnet spotted to the north."

The kayakers paddle cautiously through the weedy waters of Cedar Bend, by the St. Croix River in northwestern Wisconsin, and await instructions.

"Mary and Chet, move northwest. Jerry, move east. Sumner, hug the shore.

"Pat, Dave, Joe, take cover on the east side of the peninsula." The pilot circles. "Mary, Chet, flank the cygnet.... Sumner, Jerry, move in on the adults."

Suddenly two large swans take to the air. "We have flyers," the pilot says.

"That's too bad," says Pat Manthey, field coordinator for Wisconsin's trumpeter swan reintroduction program. She's also heading this tagging mission. "I've been trying to get that female for years."

Attention shifts to the baby. This cygnet (SIG-net), or baby swan, cannot fly yet. It was born in early July and won't take to the air for another few weeks. It seems more than willing to cooperate.

Mary and Chet form a V with their kayaks to trap the bird. Chet Anderson calmly reaches into the water and lifts it out. He places it between his knees. The swan rests its head on top of the kayak and watches patiently as its captors paddle ashore.

Once on land, Mary Griesbach, Joe Lysdahl, and Jerry McNally hold the bird as Ms. Manthey places a three-inch-tall yellow collar around its neck. The tag will help biologists identify the bird as it matures, migrates, and mates. Manthey also crimps a numbered metal band around its leg. "The leg band usually lasts longer than the collar," she says.

After taking a blood sample and a swab to test the health and determine the sex of the bird, it is wrapped in a net and weighed: 22 pounds. A good-size cygnet!

I get to carry the young swan down to the water. I put one arm under its webbed feet and the other under its chest. I wade out until the swan is fully supported by water, and then gently release it. The cygnet ruffles its feathers as it glides away.

"Wow, what a sight," Anderson says.

As this is the last trumpeter to be tagged this season, everyone takes a moment to reflect on the fact that there are baby trumpeters in the wilds of Wisconsin.

Fifteen years ago, trumpeter swans did not exist in this state except in captivity. Only 392 lived in all the lower 48 states.

Trumpeters used to live throughout the United States and Canada. (See map.) In the 1800s, the birds were hunted for their meat, their feathers (to make quill pens and hat decorations), and their skin (to make powder puffs).

"Everyone just expected them to go extinct," Manthey says. She's an avian ecologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Then, in the mid-1980s, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin decided to try to reintroduce the birds. In Wisconsin at least, the success has been encouraging. Today, more than 300 trumpeters swim and fly in the wild there.

The recovery program started with a few "stolen" eggs from Alaska.

For eight years, Sumner Matteson, coordinator of Wisconsin's trumpeter-swan program, flew to Minto Flats in east- central Alaska in the spring to obtain 50 trumpeter swan eggs.

"I didn't know what to expect when I first started collecting eggs," Mr. Matteson says. "I carried a gray suitcase to put the eggs in and hoped the parents would move away from the nest when I arrived. Most did." The ones who didn't, he left alone.

Because swans lay up to nine eggs each year, Matteson often took several eggs from a nest, leaving at least two for the parents to hatch.

The eggs were flown to the Milwaukee (Wis.) County Zoo in special crates. While waiting for them to hatch, Matteson serenaded the eggs with taped adult trumpeter swan calls. "By the time they hatched," Matteson says, "they were used to adult vocalizations."

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