Oregon’s trumpeter swan breeding program gained two new additions last month when a swan pair arrived at the Pronghorn Resort near Bend.

The Trumpeter Swan Society, a national organization focused on protecting and growing wild swan populations, bought the two swans from private owners on the East Coast. The 4-year-old male came from Pennsylvania, and the 3-year-old female came from Indiana. It cost the society about $2,600 for each swan, which included the cost to ship them across the country on a commercial airline.

Bend resident Gary Ivey, past president of the Trumpeter Swan Society and former biologist at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, picked up the swans at the Portland International Airport and released them Nov. 12 at the resort. The swans can be seen gliding along a pond near the 18th hole of the resort’s Tom Fazio Championship Course.

“They seem to have taken to each other right away,” Ivey said.

The pair represents a potential boost to the state’s effort to re-establish the threatened species, which is slowly recovering after being hunted to near-extinction in the early 1900s, when none remained in Oregon.

In recent years, the repopulation effort hit multiple setbacks from illegal hunting and deadly run-ins with power lines, coyotes and even a lightning strike.

Last breeding season was a relative success with five pairs across the state producing 17 baby swans, or cygnets. But that is short of the state’s goal to have 15 breeding pairs, enough to sustain a wild population.

State wildlife officials hope the pair starts mating in the spring.

Any cygnets from the pair would be transported to the Summer Lake Wildlife Area, 19,000 acres of wetlands in central Lake County overseen by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The Summer Lake area allows cygnets that are hatched in captive environments such as the Pronghorn Resort to grow up and produce young of their own in the wild.

Swans that are raised in the wild are more savvy and likely to survive, Ivey said.

“We should start to see these wild-hatched birds breeding in a couple years,” he said.

During past breeding seasons, wildlife officials could count on cygnets from the Sunriver Nature Center’s beloved Chuck and Gracie. The pair produced six offspring over the years and were considered an important piece to the repopulation effort.

But in November 2017, Chuck was illegally shot and killed by a hunter on the Deschutes River just northwest of Sunriver.

Chuck had been a popular figure at the Sunriver Nature Center since he arrived in 2013 after being relocated from Pronghorn Resort.

David Freitag, director of agronomy at Pronghorn Resort, said the resort has housed a few other swans in the past, but has never had a successful breeding pair.

The resort lost two swans to coyotes, so Freitag and his maintenance crew are making sure the new pair does not wander away from the pond on the golf course.

The pond has an island that is a good place for the pair to nest, and it offers some protection from coyotes.

“Anytime they get stressed, they tend to wander, so our job is to keep them comfortable and keep an eye on them,” Freitag said.

The resort plans to name the swans, but no names have been picked yet.

Freitag is encouraged with how the pair have bonded.

“Even though they have never met before, they paired up immediately,” Freitag said. “It’s a much better start than last time.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7820, kspurr@bendbulletin.com