Hello all,

So, for the past 6 months or so I have been working with the Montana Waterfowl Foundation, which has been working on repopulating Trumpeter Swans, which is the largest extant species of waterfowl and is Native to Montana, and other areas of North America. Trumpeter Swans had been expropriated from this states until revitalization programs such as this began in the late 80’s and early 90’s.  Montana Waterfowl Foundation is currently the only program in the state reintroducing Swans to the area. This is a picture of me on Friday, we have 9 Swans that we will be releasing with the Tribal Wildlife and Fisheries department within the next two weeks, we have to wrangle them up and get them into aviaries where they can be captured by hand much easier then their normal living space, which is simply too large to chase them around. It is not easy catching these guys, they are fast and elusive, not to mention intimidating, the one I am holding was a smaller one and it was probably around 25 lbs, pretty big for a bird that can fly. Anyway, feel free to look up more information about the Foundation and what we do here http://www.mt-waterfowl.org/ . Also, the banding should be happening on the 7th, so look out for more pictures of interns holding swans:) Hope you are all well.