Utah Goes Ahead With Permits for Hunting Swans

The Utah Wildlife Board has decided to continue allowing tundra swans to be hunted, despite a legal challenge based on the bird’s resemblance to rare trumpeter swans.

The tundra swan hunting season will be Oct. 5 to Dec. 8. Hunters have until Monday to put their names in a drawing for one of about 2,000 swan permits.

Trumpeter swans are the largest of all waterfowl, with a wingspan as great as 7 feet; they stand 4 feet tall, weigh 25 to 35 pounds, and have a thunderous, low-pitched, bugle-like honk.

They almost disappeared from the Lower 48 states a century ago, over-hunted for food and feathers. Their numbers have since been slowly recovering.

But in the air, they are nearly impossible to distinguish from smaller and more numerous tundra swans, so trumpeters sometimes are shot by hunters. Hunters must register their birds with Utah wildlife officials, and if 10 trumpeter swans are found to have been shot, the season is to be shut down.

The fact that any trumpeter swans are killed has angered some wildlife groups. They filed a federal lawsuit saying the tundra swan hunt should be stopped.