They nested in comparable latitudes elsewhere in the United States, even as far south as the Carolinas and possibly northern Florida. We know early North Americans contributed to the loss of several large mammalian species. Archeological evidence around Utah's Great Salt Lake and in other regions of the country indicate that Native Americans made use of trumpeter swans, probably for food. Shea thinks it is likely that Native Americans who settled in California thousands of years ago killed swans as well. Few sources of meat were so readily obtainable.
Trumpeters tend to fly low and move slowly on land.
They defend their nest by facing the attacker and spreading their wings wide. Such easy picking, she says, may have diminished the swans' distribution patterns even before the arrival of the Europeans, causing trumpeters to confine their sojourns to California in the winter rather than to stay year-round. By 1993, fewer than 70 wild trumpeter swans were believed to exist, and few ornithologists doubted their ultimate extinction. W eighing up to 35 pounds , trumpeters are among nature's heaviest flyers. Trumpeter swans and the somewhat smaller tundra swans are North America's only native swans.