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Gr 4-9 The magnificent trumpeter swan, with its eight-foot wingspan, once covered most of the United States and Canada. By 1900, the species was killed off for food or feathers east of the Mississippi River and threatened with extinction. Unlike other migrating birds, swans and geese must learn their migration routes; it is not instinctive. When biologist Gavin Shire came in contact with Bill Lishman, the pilot of "Father Goose" fame, whose work with migrating geese was brought to the big s...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

An interesting problem faces conservationists who wish to reintroduce trumpeter swans to the eastern United States: since the birds must learn migration routes from their parents, and the last birds in the area died out two hundred years ago, no birds remain to remember the routes. How can the new birds learn to migrate? Bill Lishman, artist and pilot, had taught geese to migrate by getting them to follow an ultralight aircraft; biologist Gavin Shire and pilot Brooke Pennypacker, who ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More