With a startled, soft honking and the tips of their snow-white wings slapping the surface of the water, seven trumpeter swans sprinted across the pond and lifted into the Southern Illinois sky.

Dana Varner was watching the action at Burning Star No. 5, a reclaimed strip mine north of Carbondale that's the winter home for about 100 of these birds. A master's student in zoology, Varner observed the swans almost daily from November 2005 until they headed north in early March, recording their location and activities on a minute-by-minute basis.

More than a century ago, the Midwest was home to some 100,000 trumpeter swans. "They were hunted almost out of existence" for their plumage and soft skins, says assistant zoology professor Michael Eichholz.

Thanks to captive breeding and reintroduction to the wild, the species again can be seen in the Midwest. But few groups of the birds have reestablished traditional migratory patterns, perhaps due in part to loss of wetland feeding grounds.

With $117,000 from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Eichholz and Varner are working with state biologists in Wisconsin, where the Burning Star swans nest and breed, to determine if migrating swans are as healthy and productive as nonmigrating populations. One key issue is the extent to which migrating swans have learned to incorporate farm waste grains into their diet in place of the less-available underwater vegetation that is their traditional food.

The goal is to provide good management information to foster a strong, self-sustaining trumpeter swan population in the Midwest.

—by Tim Crosby, Media & Communication Resources