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Looking for the archived 2002 SwanTrax maps and data instead?
 The
Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is cooperating
with Cornell University and the Atlantic Flyway states of
Maryland, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina in a study to better
assess the migration patterns and winter ecology of tundra swans.
Specifically, scientists are trying to determine where tundra
swans breed and what routes they fly to get there; where these
swans go in the winter; what kinds of habitats tundra swans use in
Virginia; and what their survival rates are in Virginia and the
Atlantic Flyway.
To conduct the
study, swans were captured and fitted with identifying markers so
that their movements can be tracked. In Virginia, swans were
trapped and banded in January-March 2001. In addition to leg
bands, neck-collars, and conventional radio transmitters, 2 female
swans were equipped with satellite transmitters. The satellite
transmitters help provide information on long-distance movements
when the swans leave Virginia. This includes migration routes and
the location of staging, or stopover areas, and breeding
locations.
Efforts to
monitor spring migration are now underway. We have plotted the
location of our satellite-equipped birds and you can follow their
migration paths and track them to
their nesting locations. Satellite radios should remain active
for 18 months or more and could provide information on the annual
life cycles of these birds into the winter of 2003.
Where the swans
are now:
Other states
are doing the same thing, so we will have a more complete picture
of where all the marked swans are going and what differences might
exist between different wintering areas. In addition, states in
tundra swan migration and breeding areas, such as the Great Lakes
Region and Alaska, are assisting in the project by looking and
listening for marked swans. Several swans that we marked in
Virginia this winter were located by cooperators from the Canadian
Wildlife Service on the north side of Lake Erie during March and
April.
Photo by Dwight
Dyke.
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