JACKSON — The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is conducting an aerial survey for trumpeter swans and other waterfowl in the Pacific Flyway portion of western Wyoming this week.
The annual survey is coordinated with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service to obtain a count of all trumpeters in the Rocky Mountain population in the western United States.
The majority of these swans winter in the tri-state area of eastern Idaho, western Wyoming and southwestern Montana with small groups also found in Nevada and Oregon.
Last winter, the survey tallied more than 6,100 trumpeters in the tri-state area.
In the last two winter surveys, more than 1,000 trumpeters have been counted in western Wyoming along the Snake, Salt and Green River drainages, five times as many as occur during the summer months.