On Saturday morning, hunters in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin will begin shooting swans.

Yes, swans — trumpeter and tundra swans — those large white waterfowl that are as much a symbol of grace and beauty as they are of conservation success from the brink of extinction.

The hunters will be members of seven Chippewa Indian tribes, and they’ll be allowed to hunt in any huntable waters across swaths of east-central Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula known as the ceded territories of 1837 and 1842.

The two-month hunt, which has been approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, represents the first legal swan hunt in the Mississippi Flyway and the first hunt anywhere where trumpeter swans can be legally killed — though the primary target will be similar-looking tundra swans.

While the hunt is prompting unease, if not criticism, among some swan lovers, its federal approval serves as testament to the trumpeter swans’ comeback from nearly zero a few decades ago to perhaps 10,000 birds in Minnesota today.

To protect trumpeter swans, the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, which represents several tribes, has structured the hunt so that if 10 trumpeters are shot — that’s 10 total for all hunters — the season will end. Otherwise, the season will conclude Dec. 31.

Two swans of either species can be shot daily by each hunter. There is no maximum for the number of tundra swans that can be killed during the entire season.

The 10-trumpeter ceiling was new in the tribes’ proposal to federal authorities, who rejected two previous tribal swan proposals on the grounds that trumpeters wouldn’t be adequately protected.

The two birds are almost indistinguishable in flight; the allowance of 10 trumpeters is an acknowledgment of that, tribal and nontribal officials said.

TWO SWANS

The tundra and the trumpeter are the only two native swans found in Minnesota this time of year. Mute swans, sometimes brought in by landowners to deter geese, are considered a nonnative invasive species.

Tundra swans don’t nest here. The birds, which can grow up to 20 pounds, nest in the Arctic and pass through the Upper Midwest in large flocks en route to Atlantic wintering grounds off Maryland and North Carolina.

Tundra swan populations are strong — flocks of 50,000 have been seen on the Mississippi River along the Minnesota-Wisconsin border — and they’ve actually been legally hunted in Western states since 1962.

Today, tundras are hunted in three of North America’s four migratory bird flyways: the Pacific, Central and Atlantic. North and South Dakota allow limited tundra hunts. Minnesota could hunt them as well, but the state has eschewed the idea, noting its legacy of restoring trumpeter swans from the brink of extinction.

Weighing up to 30 pounds, trumpeters are the world’s largest waterfowl. They nest throughout Minnesota and much of Wisconsin, spending most of their time in small family groups.

Trumpeters migrate relatively short distances. Many never leave Minnesota, and the thousands of trumpeters that congregate on the open waters of the Mississippi in Monticello have become the city’s biggest tourist attraction. Others fly as far south as Arkansas and Missouri.

The only reason trumpeters are here is the result of decades of restoration efforts by government agencies and private groups in Minnesota.

TRUMPETER RECOVERY

By the 1930s, trumpeters had disappeared from the contiguous United States, except parts of western Montana. The only large population was in Alaska, where Carrol Henderson traveled in the late 1980s.

Henderson, who now heads the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ Nongame Wildlife Program, helped spearhead a state-run restoration effort to boost smaller efforts, which had shown promise but were failing to yield strong results.

His primary partner was Jim Cooper, a now-retired professor at the University of Minnesota. Funding was provided from several sources, including a voluntary donations by income tax payers.

Henderson recalls taking a series of flights into remote areas of Alaska to find a trumpeter, take eggs from a nest and bring them back home.

A connection to a senior official at Northwest Airlines allowed Henderson and a colleague to fly first-class from Fairbanks, Alaska, to the Twin Cities, and he needed the first-class amenities. The eggs were kept in suitcases modified with hot-water bottles to keep them warm. The hot water needed replenishing several times on each flight.

“We ran the first-class coffee makers nonstop,” Henderson said. “Everyone on the plane was totally fascinated by what we were doing, with our suitcases of eggs and hot water from the coffee makers.”

The goal of the restoration program was that, by now, there would be about 30 nesting pairs of trumpeters.

There are more like 750, and the populations is roughly doubling every five years.

“It’s mind-boggling,” he said. “I never would have thought in my life we would be so successful.”

HUNTING SWANS

“There’s no biological issue whatsoever with taking 10 trumpeter swans,” said Steve Cordts, who oversees migratory bird hunting for the Minnesota DNR.

The DNR wasn’t involved with the decision to allow the tribal hunt, and Cordts said it hasn’t expressed an opinion on the matter. He said trumpeters were never listed as a federally threatened or endangered species and were removed from the state’s list years ago.

Larry Gillette, a board member of the Plymouth-based Trumpeter Swan

Society, said he believes the hunt will essentially be a brief

trumpeter swan hunt, ending with 10 trumpeters killed and fewer tundra

swans.

“Our speculation is that mostly trumpeters will be shot,” Gillette said. “In most areas of Minnesota and Wisconsin right now, the only swans around are trumpeters. And they’re going to stay here until the water freezes. They’re easy to spot and they’re used to people, so they won’t be gun shy.”

Under the hunt rules, every swan must be registered within 48 hours of being shot, and each bird must be brought, fully feathered, to a wildlife biologist for identification.

For that reason, Peter David, wildlife biologist for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, said he is confident the trumpeter take will be negligible.

He said there are only about 100 tribal waterfowl hunters in the region. It was on behalf of some of them that he applied for the swan hunt for several years.

“Most tribal hunters try to do a subsistence hunt,” David said. “It’s very hard to do that with waterfowl.”

For the past two years, for example, the tribes have been allowed to hunt sandhill cranes that nontribal members can’t shoot. Total number of cranes killed: four.

“It’s going to be a very small number of swans that will be shot,” he said.

For Gillette, it’s not about the number of trumpeters shot; he doesn’t think the population will be harmed.

“I’m more concerned about the precedent it might set,” he said. “Other people will say, ‘I want to shoot swans, too.’ Then before you know it, we’ll have trumpeters being killed by duck hunters all over.”

A hunter of deer and game birds himself, Gillette noted that no money from hunting license sales has ever gone toward trumpeter swan restoration, and that was intentional.

“Personally, I don’t think we need to hunt every animal out there.”

Dave Orrick can be reached at 651-228-5512. Follow him at twitter.com/OutdoorsNow.

HUNT RULES

Who: Members of seven Chippewa Indian tribes.

Where: Parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan’s ceded territories of 1837 and 1842.

When: Today to Dec. 31, or until 10 trumpeter swans have been killed.

Bag limits: Two swans daily (tundra or trumpeter); possession limit of two.

BRIEF HISTORY

1930s: To prevent the extinction on trumpeter swans, Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge established in Montana.

1960s: Released by Hennepin County Park Reserve District (now Three Rivers Park District), swans nest in Minnesota for first time in nearly 80 years, but their population remains small.

1962: Hunting for tundra swans, which nest in the Arctic, begins in Utah — the first legal hunting of swans since Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.

1967: Trumpeter Swan Society forms in Plymouth to promote the restoration of trumpeter swans.

1982: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ Nongame Wildlife Program joins trumpeter restoration.

1986: The DNR collects 50 wild trumpeter eggs a year in Alaska, incubates them and rears the young at Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area; bird releases begin in 1987.

1998: Trumpeter swan nests documented in southeastern Minnesota for the first time since the 1880s.

2004: Minnesota’s trumpeter swan flock has more than 2,000 birds and growing rapidly; by now, tundra swan hunts allowed in Pacific, Central and Atlantic flyways.

2013: Minnesota trumpeter swan population estimated at 7,500 to 10,000; Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission application for a hunt of migrating tundra swans is denied by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over concerns for trumpeters being shot.

2014: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approves tribal swan hunt; plan ensures season will close if 10 trumpeters are shot.

Today: Tribal hunt will be first legal swan hunt in Mississippi Flyway and first hunt anywhere to allow trumpeters to be shot.

Sources: Minnesota DNR, USFWS, GLIFWC

This story has been edited to correct a statement by Larry Gillette, a board member of the Plymouth-based Trumpeter Swan

Society, about how many trumpeter swans might be killed in this season’s hunt.