New Swan Song on Lake LaVerne 

by Anne Dolan
Come August, a "new" Lake LaVerne will be home to a pair of 
trumpeter swans. The new Lancelot and Elaine are gifts from 
the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which five years 
ago launched a project to return the once-native bird to 
Iowa. They will replace the pair of mute swans that has 
"summered" on the lake for years.

Veishea typically marks the annual return of the swans to the 
lake from their winter quarters. But because of plans this 
summer to clean and deepen the lake and install a well, the 
lake will remain swan-less until after the restoration work 
is completed. That work is expected to begin this month and 
be completed sometime in August.

Trumpeter swans haven't lived in Iowa since the 1880s, 
according to George Knaphus, professor of biology and faculty 
adviser to the Liberal Arts and Sciences Council, the student 
group that adopted Lancelot and Elaine as a project in 1977. 

Because trumpeter swans thrive in areas of open water, the 
birds went elsewhere as Iowans drained their wetlands. Now 
that the trend is being reversed, Knaphus said it's possible 
to increase the trumpeter population in the state.

He said Iowa State will receive two birds born this year and 
that with a little luck and no predators, the pair could have 
young by 1998. An island that will be added to the lake as 
part of the restoration project should encourage the swans to 
nest, he said.

Knaphus called trumpeter swans "the majesty of the world, as 
far as I'm concerned." He said they are larger, more graceful 
and noisier than the mute swans -- so called because they 
make no sounds. A trumpeter swan's bill is dark black and 
more pointed that the knobby, orange bill of the mute swan.

The former Lancelot and Elaine were given to the DNR this 
spring and now are at a nesting spot near Mason City.

Knaphus said the new swans will be left on the lake as late 
as possible next fall to let them acclimate. For the winter 
months, DNR employees will transport them to a state-owned 
plot in southern Iowa that has a deeper lake.

Iowa State's long-time swan caretaker, Bill Larson, 
superintendent of the Poultry Science Center south of Ames on 
State Street, will continue in that role, bringing the 
trumpeters feed and getting them on and off the lake in the 
spring and fall.

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contact:  Anne Dolan, Internal Communications, (515) 294-7065
updated:  5-4-95