Her beloved swans face a hidden menace

Photo: Cathie Coward, the Hamilton Spectator

Bev Kingdon calls out and black-beaked trumpeter swans swoop in to feed at the LaSalle Park shoreline.

"To see over 100 swans come flying in and land down there is just the best thing there is," she says.

About half of the trumpeter swans in the Great Lakes Basin -- 20 per cent of the Ontario population -- winter in our area before heading back north to nest in the Midland area.

The trumpeters (Olor buccinator) continue to grow in number and this winter there are more at LaSalle Park than Kingdon has ever seen before -- as many as 120.

But it has been a bittersweet winter for Kingdon as she treasures, feeds and monitors -- loves, actually -- the brood of vulnerable swans.

More of the majestic waterfowl are sick or dying than ever before, usually from lead poisoning. "I lost more swans this winter than in the past ten years," says Kingdon, an east Burlington resident.

Five times this winter she has taken the drive up to Guelph Veterinary College with an ailing trumpeter or a carcass for autopsy.

"Once a week for five weeks, I had a sick or dead swan in my arms and that was really
tough," she said.

In the past two decades, Kingdon and dozens of volunteers with the Trumpeter Swan Restoration Program have brought the Ontario population of the world's largest and rarest swan back from near-extinction.

There are now 504 to 545 wild trumpeter swans in Ontario. A 1932 study reported only about 200 birds in North America.

The Ontario restoration program -- partly funded by the Trillium Foundation and part of a North American effort -- has reached its minimum target of 500 free-flying birds using captive
breeding pairs and releasing off-spring.

In the next few years, the program hopes to achieve its next goal of ensuring there are about 100 mature breeding pairs so that the population can be self-sustaining.

The swans live for about 20 years and don't start breeding until about the third or fourth year. There are an estimated 60 breeding pairs in Ontario.

"When they nest that first year, they usually pick a poor nest and they are not successful," Kingdon says. "We lose the first couple of years before they catch on as good parents."

Harry Lumsden is the man who began the restoration effort. The retired biologist still heads it and says lead is a major threat to the birds.

The use of lead shot for hunting waterfowl was prohibited in Ontario in 1999 but the swans still ingest it, and lead fishing sinkers, as they feed in wetlands and along shorelines.

"They are picking up lead somewhere before they reach Burlington Bay," Lumsden said. "There's a hundred years of accumulation of lead in some marshes and swans, for some reason, love lead and are geniuses at finding it."

And they are particularly sensitive to its effects.

"You can tell the change in their personality right away when they've got the lead trouble," says Kingdon.

Kingdon and other volunteers provide feed corn to augment their diet.