A trumpeter swan is not a tough bird to notice. Adults measure nearly four feet long with a wing span of nearly 8 feet. The all-white trumpeter is larger than its cousins, the tundra swan and mute swan, and is easily identified by its broad black bills and distinctive loud, trumpet like call. Becker also noticed this particular swan was adorned with a red and white plastic neck band that identified the new arrival as ?H99.?

To learn more about the origins of the zoo's winged visitor, Zookeeper Kathryn Yochis contacted Robyn Flaherty of the Migratory Bird Permits Office at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Twin Cities. Flaherty learned from the USGS Banding Lab in Maryland that the swan was hatched in Iowa in 1999. After an exchange of emails concerning the swan with several of her contacts in the migratory bird community, Flaherty learned that H99's road from an Iowa wetland to a municipal zoo in Wisconsin was an incredible journey involving many people on both sides of the law.

H99, a male, was hatched in 1999 near West Bend, Iowa, and was raised at the Swan Restoration Project, a captive breeding program operated by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Non-Game Wildlife Program. In March 2000 the young swan received its red identifying neck band and was released to the wild. Over the next three years, H99 was sighted in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. Along the way, H99 had mated with a wild female trumpeter, and was nesting near Sleepy Eye, Minn. The pair eventually produced four cygnets. In late fall 2003 the adult pair and their four cygnets left the Midwest, ending up at the small town of Lockney, Texas, on December 13, 2003.

Alice Gilroy, editor of the Floyd County Hesperian-Beacon newspaper in Floydada, Texas, still remembers the day she first heard the news about the swans in her home town. And, it wasn?t good news. ?I was at home when I got a call from the Floyd County Game Warden Mark Collins and he was really upset. He told me that if I wanted a story I should come down to a city-owned pond in Lockney right away.?

Gilroy arrived at the pond minutes later and encountered a visibly upset Collins surrounded by two dead and three wounded trumpeter swans. The birds had been shot by poachers and left to die. A passing pheasant hunter saw the injured swans and reported it. H99 had survived the shooting, but was badly wounded. His mate was nowhere to be found. Two of the cygnets were dead; the other two were in bad shape. H99 and his two injured cygnets were taken to the South Plains Rehabilitation Center in Lubbock, Texas.

?It was sad to see them so peppered with buckshot,? said Center Director Carol Lee, who until that day, had never worked with a bird larger than a Canada goose. ?We X-rayed the birds, medicated and treated them. It was hard work. It took at least two people to handle and treat each swan because of its large size. As we treated the cygnets, H99 would trumpet as if pleading with us to leave them alone. It was heart wrenching,? recalled Lee. One of the cygnets was later euthanized due to the extent of its injuries.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department immediately offered a $1,000 reward for the poachers. Nine days later, four individuals came forward and confessed to shooting the swans. The four were fined a total of $17,000--$500 for each swan shot plus veterinary expenses and court costs.

On January 1, 2004, H99 and his surviving cygnet were transferred from Lubbock to the Orphaned and Injured Wildlife Inc., a wildlife rehabilitation facility in Spirit Lake, Iowa. During their three month stay at the Institute, the birds? wing fractures healed and a bone chip in H99's knee joint was surgically removed, allowing him to walk normally again. The cygnet also received its own red neck band from the Iowa DNR: 5C7. In the spring of 2004, the swans were released back to the wild.

Since the December 2003 shooting incident, H99's female mate has never been found. Although trumpeter swans mate for life, wildlife officials at the Iowa DNR thought they might be able to pair H99 with 1F4, a female trumpeter who had also lost its mate. In March, the swans were introduced to each on a wetland near New Hartford, Iowa. ?We hoped H99 would hit it off with the female but they never really bonded,? said Dave Hoffman, wildlife technician with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Hoffman said that through the spring and summer, H99 was beginning to fly, ?but not very well.? In August, Hoffman's surprise, H99 left the Iowa wetland.

For now, H99 appears content to over winter within the safe confines of the Wildwood Park and Zoo in Marshfield. ?We?ll continue to feed him along with the other waterfowl and swans until spring when he?ll likely set out for someplace else,? Becker said.

?This year he may be a little gun shy of Texas,? Hoffman said.

Although rare in many parts of the United States, the trumpeter swan is not federally-listed as a threatened or endangered species, but is state-listed as an endangered species in Wisconsin, and as a threatened species in Michigan. It is also protected by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act and various state laws.

Trumpeter swans were once common throughout most of the northern United States. In the Midwest, the Trumpeter's historic breeding range ranged from Nebraska to central Michigan. Trumpeters regularly nested in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin until the 1880s when market hunting began to decimate swan populations. Swan skins were sold in the fur trade to Europe where they were used to make ladies' powder puffs and feathers were used for fashionable hats. The high demand for feathers and plumage from trumpeter swans and other migratory birds took its toll on bird populations and led Congress to enact the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918. The Act decreed that all migratory birds and their parts (including eggs, nests, and feathers) were fully protected. The federal law put an end to the unchecked commercial trade in birds and their feathers that, by the early years of the 20th century, had wreaked havoc on the populations of many native bird species. In the 1930s, less than 100 trumpeter swans were known to exist in the United States.

In 1935, the federal government established Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Montana to protect the remnant trumpeter swan population. Trumpeter swans are also found at several national wildlife refuges and wetland management districts in the upper Midwest. ?They?re becoming more and more common on refuges and wetland management districts throughout the region, especially in Minnesota,? said Barry Christensen, refuge area supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Twin Cities. ?Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge in northern Iowa is also a key player in Iowa's reintroduction program.?

Iowa's Trumpeter Swan Restoration Program began in 1993 when the Iowa DNR developed a plan to restore trumpeter swans back to the state. The program produced its first birds in 1998 when three cygnets hatched from a wild nesting trumpeter pair in Dubuque County. It was the first hatching of wild trumpeter swans recorded in Iowa since 1883. To date, Iowa has released 572 trumpeter swans. Its banded swans have been reported in 15 states and two Canadian provinces. Approximately 100 will be released at various sites during 2005.

The majority of Iowa's reintroduced swans come from 55 flightless breeder pairs located at appropriate sites throughout the state. Most of these breeding pairs are made up of swans that were injured or otherwise unable to fly. The young from these pairs are allowed free flight. Swans are also obtained from zoos, private authorized propagators, other state swan projects, and other sources. Similar reintroduction programs in the Great Lakes region exist in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio. In 2004, the North American population of trumpeter swans was estimated to be approximately 4,500 birds.

All trumpeter swans released in Iowa are marked with plastic green and red neck collars and leg bands as well as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bands. The plastic neck and leg bands are marked with alpha letter F, H, P, or J and numbers 00 through 99. In addition to Iowa, banding is conducted by federal and state agencies, university researchers, bird observatories, and other authorized individuals. Because banding most often requires the capture and handling of migratory birds, special banding permits are required. The North American bird banding program is managed jointly by the U.S. Department of Interior and the Canadian Wildlife Service. Amateur birders and the general public can assist ongoing research of migratory birds by reporting numbers from banded birds. Bands can be reported to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center via the Internet at: http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/ Bands can also be reported by telephone by calling 1-800-327-BAND (2263) from anywhere in Canada, the United States and most parts of the Caribbean. The operator will need to know the band number, how, when and where the bird or band was found.

Trumpeter swan and migratory bird resources on the Internet:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: http://birds.fws.gov http://refuges.fws.gov

Iowa Department of Natural Resources http://www.iowadnr.com/wildlife/files/swanrestor.html

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/ecological_services/nongame/projects/trumpeterswan/index.html

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/factsheets/birds/swan.htm

Ohio Department of Natural Resources http://www.dnr.ohio.gov/wildlife/resources/projects/swans.htm

Michigan Department of Natural Resources http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12145_12202-33030--,00.html

Trumpeter Swan Society: http://trumpeterswansociety.org