An ambitious management plan for trumpeter swans, calling for officials to move as many of the birds as possible away from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, has been unveiled before the Idaho Fish and Game Commission.
The plan calls for federal and state agencies to work on dispersing the swans away from the Yellowstone area to more suitable wintering areas.Ruth Shea, regional biologist and local expert on trumpeter swans, told the Fish and Game Commission on Thursday about 2,000 trumpeter swans winter in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, with about 700 of them concentrated during winter in the Harriman State Park area.
Attempts to trap and shuttle the birds to southern Idaho are expected to get under way in late October and early November.
In the winter of 1988-89, the Henry's Fork of the Snake River iced over, contributing to the deaths of at least 100 swans in the Island Park area, Shea said.