Written by Gary Ivey
Photo above of swan release at Summer Lake Wildlife Area, June 2025
Summer Lake Swan Release: Since 2009, Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, The Trumpeter Swan Society, and Malheur Refuge staff have partnered on the Oregon Trumpeter Swan Restoration Project. The goal of the program is to develop a self-sustaining breeding flock of Trumpeters in Oregon and to develop connections between the Summer Lake and Malheur Refuge swans.
On Friday, June 20, 2025, a total of 19 Trumpeter Swan yearlings were released at Summer Lake Wildlife Area. These yearlings were provided by several zoos and Sun River Nature Center. The zoos donated their swans to the Project and paid for their transportation costs.
The young swans were allowed to grow to full size before being rounded up at zoos in October and having their wing feathers clipped to keep them flightless, before transferring them to the Idaho Zoo in Pocatello. The Idaho Zoo site is a soft release site where the flock are kept pretty much isolated from humans to allow them to mature and smarten up, and “wild up” before release in June at Summer Lake. In late June, they are beginning to molt their flight feathers and grow new ones so they will take their first flight at Summer Lake in a few weeks. They tend to imprint on the landscapes where they first learn to fly.
The 19 yearlings were transported from Zoo Idaho to Summer Lake where they were sexed, neck-collared and banded with assistance from participating zoo staff to prepare them for release. The green collars are each uniquely coded to allow identification and tracking of individual swans for future monitoring.
They were crated and trucked in three groups to three different large wetlands for release by the crew as shown in the following sequence of photos
Recent reports indicate that at least five pairs are nesting at Summer Lake Wildlife Area this season and we are anticipating a very good year for the Oregon Restoration Program.
Meanwhile, back at Malheur… As I previously reported the Malheur flock has declined to only three Trumpeter Swans remaining during the breeding season, all adult females. We believe this group includes the older mother and her two daughters, hatched several years ago. For the last 3 seasons, the mother and one of her daughters have behaved as a female-female pair. They built a nest at Benson Pond in 2023 and laid eggs which never hatched. I visited Benson Pond on May 31, this year and observed them building a nest. Today, June 26, I received a report from retired Summer Lake Wildlife Area Manager, Martin St. Louis who found all 3 Malheur trumpeters on an aerial survey this morning. He observed one of the swans at Benson Pond apparently incubating while the other swam nearby.
In 2023, the third Malheur female actually found a mate, a male swan descendant from one of our released pairs that was raised along the Crooked River, east of Prineville. They actually nested and laid eggs in a wetland on the GI Ranch in Crook County, but the nest was destroyed by predators and apparently they divorced as the male returned to Summer Lake and the female to Malheur.
Another bit of bright news is that in May, Teresa Wicks, biologist for the Oregon Bird Alliance reported a neck-collared trumpeter which was identified as a 2-year old male, who was released at Summer Lake in June 2024 and was originally hatched at Sun River Nature Center.
We are hopeful that the Summer Lake flock will continue to expand and find the wonderful Malheur Refuge wetlands and join the Malheur flock.
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