You might be wondering about the title of this blog post but up until yesterday it was actually legal to harvest a trumpeter swan in Utah during the annual swan hunt.
Being a birdwatcher myself, I can honestly say I don’t know why it was ever legal to hunt trumpeter swans in the first place, and up until a couple years ago I thought only tundra swans could be hunted.
The reason is Utah’s swan hunt was just that, a generally termed hunt where swans of either species, both tundra or trumpeter, may legally be harvested by hunters obtaining one of the yearly allocated numbers of “swan hunting” permits.
The only caveat to it was a quota imposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of only 20 trumpeter swans per year that could be harvested in Utah before all swan hunting activity in the state closed down for the season.
Currently, Utah is one of only nine states allowing an annual swan hunt, and, ironically, each of the past 4 years the hunting of all swans has actually been closed down early because the trumpeter swan quota was reached, seemingly earlier and earlier each year from my personal recollection.
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Yesterday, however, the Utah Wildlife Board voted to prohibit hunters from harvesting trumpeter swans, leaving only tundra swans to be taken during the hunt.
None of this was much of an issue before 2019 when swan hunting regulations changed, expanding the hunting boundaries further northward in Box Elder County as well as increasing the total number of swan permits offered.
Prior to that year, swan hunting was only allowed in Box Elder County south of Forest Street, allowing hunting of swans on the federally owned Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge but not on the northerly adjacent state-owned property known as Public Shooting Grounds or any private lands such as farms, fields, other parcels north of Forest Street in Box Elder County.
The reason this regulation change in 2019 affected the trumpeter swans and the overall swan hunt so much was for some unknown reason trumpeter swans never really use the wetlands on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge very much but are commonly found during fall and winter feeding on farms in Corinne and roosting on the wetlands of Public Shooting Grounds further west.
This regulation change offered an easy opportunity for hunters to now cross paths with trumpeter swans in these newly opened up areas as technically they were legal to harvest, until yesterday’s wildlife board meeting that is.
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Sadly, it is believed by some that ever since the regulation change in 2019 some hunters were purposefully targeting trumpeter swans once word got out they can be found on Pubic Shooting Grounds, causing the trumpeter swan quota to be met and the entire swan hunt shut down early each year since then.
And what is believed by a few people I have talked to in resulting in even more trumpeter swans being harvested each year was hunters were required to take a swan identification course before obtaining a hunting permit, giving them better knowledge on how to identify a trumpeter swan in the field and on the wing.
It was hoped by implementing this required course swan hunters would purposely avoid harvesting swans but, unfortunately, the reverse seems to have happened by some hunters where it was now much easier to harvest trumpeter swans from being more learned on how to identify them.
(Trumpeter Swans Migrating Through Box Elder County, Utah. For short nature clips like this one and interesting stories about the natural world around us, check out our Bear River Blogger channel on YouTube for videos and updates from our travels while out in nature.)
From what I can tell, it isn’t fully known where trumpeter swans migrating to Utah are coming from but it’s commonly believed they are of the Greater Yellowstone population.
In fact, from previous year’s hunts feather samples have been collected from harvested trumpeter swans to be matched up through DNA studies to regional swan populations but so far I haven’t found anyone yet with specific results from that particular study so it’s still unclear where exactly Utah’s trumpeter swans are migrating from.
From yesterday’s Utah Wildlife Board meeting, only tundra swan hunting permits will be issued, making it now illegal to harvest a trumpeter swan in Utah.
Furthermore, hunters will still be required as in past years to check in any harvested swans at a Utah DWR office and any trumpeter swans harvested will be seized and the hunter may face a citation.
The previous wildlife board mandate from December 2021, one that implements a waiting period to reapply for another season’s permit for anyone who harvests a trumpeter swan, 5 years for adults and 3 years for youth, is still in effect in addition to yesterday’s new rule approved by the Utah Wildlife Board in making hunting trumpeter swans illegal.
All of this is certainly good news for those of us that love trumpeter swans and especially for the trumpeter swans themselves.
I for one enjoy viewing and photographing the beautiful and majestic trumpeter swan feeding in the leftover corn fields in Corrine during winter.
Each year it seems I find more and more trumpeter swans in this small, rural farming town in Box Elder County.
And I will be honest, I think this regulation change making it illegal to harvest a trumpeter swan is long overdue.
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