Hunters who applied for a permit to harvest a tundra swan will find out if they won the luck of the draw on Sept. 16, with the season to open on Oct. 3 and go through the second weekend in December. Utah is one of four states in the Pacific Flyway where tundra swan can be hunted.
Blair Stringham is the migratory game and bird coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
“We have about 5,000 people that will apply for a swan permit every year and we give out about 2,000 permits here in Utah," Stringham said. "We have about a 40 percent success rate, or so, with those permits. So more than half of them aren’t even shooting a swan, and that total harvest across the whole Pacific Flyway is usually only about 1,000 birds – it’s fairly insignificant.”
Hunting for Swan in Utah requires permit applicants to take a one-time swan hunter course before they can participate in the seasonal lottery. It costs $10 to apply for a permit and another $15 if a hunter is successful in the draw. The money raised from the process is used to manage the swans and to monitor migration and population.
"It’s a difficult hunt and we have a lot of people who after their first hunt don’t apply for it again," Stringham said. "So it is a challenge but it does raise a lot of money that we can use specifically for swan management."
While the tundra swan may be difficult to harvest, Stringham said it has become autumn tradition for some who serve it for their holiday feast.