The species occurs in three main populations along the Pacific coast from Alaska to the northern U.S.A., throughout the Rocky Mountains from Yukon (Canada) to the northern U.S.A. and further inland from central to eastern North America (Rees et al. 2019; Mitchell and Eichholz 2020).

Conservation Actions Underway
The population is monitored regularly during the North American Trumpeter Swan Surveys, which commenced in 1968 and are repeated every five years since 1975 (Rees et al. 2019). The species is also covered by the Audubon Christmas Bird Count (Meehan et al. 2018). The Rocky Mountain population and Interior population are augmented by reintroductions undertaken over several decades (Rees et al. 2019). To restore populations in the wild, captive breeding has been used for many decades, and there are large captive managed populations. Reserves were created to protect the species's habitat (Rees et al. 2019). New habitat is created, e.g. by treating water to increase the production of aquatic plants, by manipulating stream flow arrangements and by reducing human disturbance (Mitchell and Eichholz 2020).