Chris L. Lloyd Dedication

Saturday, April 27, 2013

On April 27th at 10:30 a.m. The Buena Vista County Conservation Board will hold a renaming dedication ceremony at the BuenaVista County Swan Restoration Refuge on Hwy #71. The site will be renamed the Chris L Lloyd Swan Restoration Refuge. Chris, a local retired Department of Natural Resources Game Warden passed away unexpectedly in December 2012 at his home in Austin Texas.















Chris had a vision in 1998 of collaborating with the DNR in the reintroduction of the Trumpeter Swan which had been brought to the brink of extinction. Chris brought a group of community leaders together which culminated in the creation of the Buena Vista County Trumpeter Swan Restoration Committee. The committee took possession of their first birds in January 1999 at the Hwy 71 site and ultimately expanded the project to eight sites in four counties.































Since the inception, the committee has released over 90 young swans into the wild and the swans have been sighted in five states and as far away as Tennessee.















As a result of the project, Buena Vista County had their first successful hatch of wild Swans in the North east corner of the county in 2006.































In 1997 there were no wild Trumpeter Swans nesting in Iowa. In 2012, 47 wild Trumpeter Swan pairs attempted nesting in Iowa, down a bit from the 51 pair which nested in 2011. We invite the public to join us for this celebration of a successful project and to dedicate the site to the visionary who helped make















this project a reality. Refreshments will be provided after.

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