TRUMPETS IN THE WEST — MORSE 459 



98 of 102 birds examined, and 50 to 95 percent obscured in the remain- 

 ing four. 



The surest field characteristic is, of course, the voice of the trum- 

 peter. It can never be mistaken for anything else. A peculiar extra 

 convolution of the windpipe within the trumpeter's breastbone is the 

 final and positive identification. This convolution is also responsible 

 for the trumpeter's clarion voice. Like all swans, the male is called 

 a "cob," the female a "pen," and the young are "cygnets." 



We know from records that the trumpeter was widely distributed, 

 but few reports of large numbers of birds have been made by quali- 

 fied ornithologists, so a reasonable doubt exists that they were ever 

 as niunerous as some believe. Records are authentic for distribu- 

 tion, and while trumpeters may not have numbered in the millions, 

 they were found throughout the West. Whether there were many or 

 very many, we know that the tiiimpeter was intensely pei"secuted 

 from the time white men entered the country. Trumpeters fly low, 

 near the borders of lakes and marshes, exactly where hunting is 

 easiest. They often wintered on the only open water in cold areas, 

 a habit which tended to concentrate hunting on the species more than 

 on the whistler. 



As prairie land was taken up, nesting marshes and potholes were 

 drained. By 1912 E. H. Forbush stated, "The trumpeter has suc- 

 cumbed to incessant persecution in all parts of its range, and its total 

 extinction is now only a matter of years." This seemed true, and by 

 the 1920's the bird had almost vanished. By 1935, there were 73 swans 

 in the United States by actual count, the bulk of these on Red Rock 

 Lakes, Mont., and in Yellowstone Park. If any year was ever critical to 

 a bird, 1935 was the year for the triunpeter. That was the golden 

 year of national wildlife refuge expansion. Large Federal emergency 

 fund appropriations provided money for acquisition and enlargement 

 of many refuges on a scale never since equaled. Red Rock Lakes was 

 one of these. Federal lands were withdrawn for wildlife purposes, 

 private ranches purchased, and the remnants of the trumpeters at last 

 had a home of their own, dedicated solely to their welfare. Forty 

 thousand acres it was, swan breeding and wintering country since 

 the end of the last Ice Age. 



Swan had always nested here. Cowboys of the 1880's roped and 

 butchered cygnets to vary a diet of beef and beans. Market hunters 

 and commercial duck clubs had operated. One connnercial enter- 

 prise near the turn of the century, strangely enough, may have been 

 responsible for perpetuating the trumpeter. The Wetmore family, 

 oldtime ranchers at Red Rock, started catching trumpeter cygnets for 

 sale to zoos and gardens throughout the country. It was a lucrative 

 business for those times, for prices varied from $50 to $75 a pair. 



