Two new trumpeter swans will be welcomed to Lake LaVerne and Iowa State today at 4:30 p.m.

The ceremony, which is open to the public, will be held on the west side of the lake.

The Liberal Arts and Sciences Council, a student organization that has been responsible for the ISU swans, Lancelot and Elaine, for 18 years decided to replace the mute swans with trumpeter swans. The new swans will also be named Lancelot and Elaine.

The LAS Council and the ISU Trumpeter Swan Committee, which includes the ISU Furharvesters Club, Fisheries and Wildlife Biology Club, Student Environmental Council and the ISU Ducks Unlimited chapter, have worked to bring the trumpeter swans to ISU.

“The Trumpeter Swan Committee has been working to reintroduce trumpeter swans back to Iowa,” said George Knaphus, LAS Council adviser.

Trumpeter swans sound “very much like a trumpet or a French horn,” Ron Andrews, from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Diversity Program, said. Although trumpeter swans are usually “quite vocal,” the young Lancelot and Elaine will not be “singing” until next summer or fall.

Elaine was flown in Thursday from an island near Seattle where she was hatched on June 8. Andrews will be bringing the new Lancelot to the ceremony. Lancelot was hatched on May 29 in a facility near Armstrong.

Knaphus expects Homer Smith, who sold one of the original swans to the council in 1977, to be at the ceremony.