Six pair of trumpeter swans released in northwest Iowa

(Photo by Kris Todd) Four-year-old Chase Kooker, of Spencer, was able to touch a trumpeter swan, the largest waterfowl species native to North America, held by Dave Hoffman, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources wildlife technician from Clear Lake, Saturday afternoon at a Clay County release site. Kooker attended the 15th Annual Wings and Wetlands weekend event sponsored by the Clay County Conservation Board with his parents, Todd and Shanna Kooker, and 2-year-old brother, Blake. [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

Six pair of trumpeter swans were released Saturday in the heart of Iowa's "prairie pothole" region. The hope of the release is that the swans will imprint on the six sites in northwest Iowa and continue to nest at them in future years.

The weekend releases, which were part of a swan restoration project by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources' Clear Lake wildlife unit, occurred in Clay, Dickinson, Emmet, O'Brien, Palo Alto and Kossuth counties.

The 10-month-old cygnets released in a Ducks Unlimited marsh in Clay County were raised near Cannon Falls, Minn. and at the University of Tennessee. The pair was introduced three months ago.

Dave Hoffman, a DNR wildlife technician from Clear Lake, encouraged the group attending the 15th Annual Wings and Wetlands weekend event in Clay County to support organizations such as Ducks Unlimited and to create habitat stands in order to assist in the repopulation of the swans throughout Iowa.

(Photo by Kris Todd) Clay County Naturalist Stacy Young watches as Iowa Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Technician Dave Hoffman allows Hazel Christenson, 91, of Spencer, to feel the feathers on a trumpeter swan's flexible neck. The former home economics teacher attended swan releases held Saturday at the Ducks Unlimited marsh, located 10 miles east of Spencer along U.S. Highway 18, and at Kettleson Hogback Pond near Spirit Lake with her daughter and son-in-law, Mark and Susan Mahoney of West Des Moines. [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

* To view more photographs taken during the Clay County trumpeter swan release, visit http://www.spencerdailyreporter.com/gall...