COLUMBUS — Nearly three decades of work to restore the trumpeter swan population to Ohio has culminated in the announcement that the birds have been removed from the “threatened species” list in the state.
The Ohio Wildlife Council voted to remove the trumpeter swan from the list this week, Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Natural Resources director Mary Mertz announced Friday.
“Trumpeter swans represent a great comeback story for Ohio,” Mertz said. “Through the hard work and dedication of our staff and conservation partners we can once again see trumpeter swans fly through Ohio’s skies.”
The delisting is the result of a 28-year effort by the ODNR’s Division of Wildlife to restore the population of the birds, which had nearly been extirpated in Ohio in the 1700s. Ohio’s trumpeter swan population today stands at nearly 900, with swans nesting in 26 different counties, DeWine and Mertz said.
“Ohio’s professional wildlife biologists dedicated themselves to growing the trumpeter swan population over nearly three decades, and their perseverance has paid off,” DeWine said.
Trumpeter swan populations experienced severe declines throughout North America in the 1700s and 1800s because of unregulated harvest and wetland habitat loss.
The Division of Wildlife began a trumpeter swan reintroduction program in 1996 by collecting swan eggs from an established population at the Minto Flats State Game Refuge in central Alaska, placing them in incubators and flying them to Ohio, where the Wilds of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo partnered to help care for the eggs, raise the young trumpeters, and release them in appropriate habitats, DeWine said.
Wetland complexes on state wildlife areas such as Funk Bottoms, Killdeer Plains, Magee Marsh, and Mosquito Creek provided the critical habitat.