Written question asked by William Bain (Labour) on Friday, 25 February 2011, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 1 March 2011. It was answered by Lord Benyon (Conservative) on Thursday, 3 March 2011 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Swans

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what her estimate is of the size of the (a) whooper and (b) Bewick's swan population in the UK during winter periods in each of the last five years.

Answer: The most recent available estimates for numbers of whooper swan Cygnus cygnus and Bewick's swan Cygnus cygnus bewickii in the UK are 15,047 and 7,005 individuals respectively, and derive from a co-ordinated international swan census undertaken in January 2005. In the UK the census was undertaken by the Goose and Swan Monitoring Programme (a partnership between the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee) and the Wetland Bird Survey (organised by the British Trust for Ornithology, RSPB and JNCC in association with WWT).A further international census was undertaken in January 2010 but the results are not yet available. Monitoring of numbers at key sites through the annual Wetland Bird Survey shows that numbers of whooper swans (which largely migrate from Iceland) have increased since 2005, while numbers of Bewick's swans (which breed in arctic Russia) have continued to show a long-term decline. For these migratory species change in global population levels is an important context to the UK figures as the birds may change their wintering distribution within their wintering ranges. The most recently compiled international trends show that the Icelandic/UK whooper population is increasing, while the Bewick's swan is declining.

Secondary information