CONWAY — Two trumpeter swans unfurled their large wings and set off to their newfound freedom at the quiet shores of Lake 16.
In a rush of energy that exposed their 8-foot wing spans and sent ripples echoing across the water last week, the birds eagerly returned to their roosting home after two weeks of rehabilitation on Camano Island.
The swans were treated and housed by private wildlife technician Sue Murphy on Camano Island after they likely hit power lines about two weeks ago.
Through a collaborative effort between the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Murphy’s Camano Wildlife Services and Puget Sound Energy, the mated pair are ready for migration.
The ongoing work to treat injured swans and help them avoid their the predators of lead poisoning and power lines has helped increase the population of waterfowl that call Skagit and Whatcom counties home.
“They’ve had an amazing comeback,” wildlife biologist Jennifer Bohannon said of the swan population. “But there’s still some threats and concerns.”
Much of that rebound is due to PSE’s work preventing power-line accidents and funding rehabilitation work.
In the early 20th Century, trumpeter swans nearly were driven to extinction.
The white-feathered birds with uncommonly long, flexible necks and a distinctive call, were heavily hunted. The birds are extremely rare on the East Coast even today, Murphy said.
A federal law in the late 1990s required electric utilities to put visible deterrents on their power lines.
The largest concentration of the swans in the United States is in Skagit County. About 6,000 come there every October to enjoy the grain fields by day and roost on lakes by night.
People like Murphy have spent years nursing injured swans to health and returning them to the wild. Murphy has been doing this work for 25 years, but stopped doing it as a volunteer when food, medication and housing became too expensive.
Murphy said it cost $100 to $200 to treat the two swans released, but rehabilitation can cost as much as $1,500, depending on the injury. “This would not be happening without Puget Sound Energy,” Murphy said.
The company started funding work like this after federal requirements were set up to deter the birds from hitting power lines. PSE spends $150,000 each year on deterrents and rehabilitation efforts.
Mel Walters, a natural resource scientist for PSE’s Aviation Protection Program, said the cost is minimal compared to what PSE gets in return.
In the last year, PSE reported 95 bird mortalities, which caused 40 power outages. Every outage prevented saves PSE money, and Walters said the company is happy to give a little back to help the population rebound.
He said few injured birds actually can be helped, especially with lead poisoning.
“The number of swans we can rehabilitate is small, so the cost of doing that is not very much,” Walters said.
Fish and Wildlife watches the lakes for birds who don’t leave in the morning. Trumpeter swans typically spend their days in a field. When wildlife tech Brian Otto sees one in the middle of the day swimming around, he’s pretty confident it’s either injured or poisoned. If he’s able to catch the bird, he knows it’s hurting.
“I can tell while I’m catching them what their symptoms are,” he said.
Otto saw one swan recently morning as he helped tag and release the healed male and female. This one skirted away, but showed some signs of lead poisoning. If the bird does have high levels of lead in its system, it will likely be euthanized because it cannot recover.
The mated pair that Otto, Murphy and Bohannon released was luckier. Their lead intake wasn’t enough to cause any permanent damage. Once released, the male took off in a low flight, finding refuge from his captors across the lake. The female left at a more leisurely pace, honking as she slowly paddled away from the shore.
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