ALASKAN WATERFOWL AND THEIR 

 MANAGEMENT 



Ira N. Gabrielson, President 

 Wildlife Management Institute 



Alaska's waterfowl have excited interest since the first Ameri- 

 can naturalists visited the territory. Interestingly enough, the 

 earliest ornithological reports were from areas now known to 

 be key waterfowl breeding grounds. These came from a corps 

 of scientists, including W. H. Dall and H. M. Bannister, under 

 the leadership of Robert Kennicott, that accompanied the 

 Russian-American Telegraph Expedition. This venture was 

 financed by a group of San Francisco capitalists who dreamed of 

 constructing a telegraph line to St. Petersburg. 



The advance parties entered Alaska in 1865 prior to its 

 acquisition by the United States, and visited among other places 

 St. Michael, the lower Yukon, and the Yukon Flats at Fort 

 Yukon. Their reports provide a story of an abundance of 

 breeding birds that excited the imagination of men accustomed 

 to seeing concentrations of wildlife. 



L. M. Turner, a member of the U. S. Signal Corps, the next 

 to visit the great marshes of the Yukon Delta, was stationed at 

 St. Michael from May 1874 until relieved by E. W. Nelson in 

 July 1877. Nelson, who later became chief of the Biological 

 Survey, remained at that station until June 1881, providing 

 continuous reports for seven years from this important water- 

 fowl area. 



Nelson, in addition to local observations, made sled trips 

 each winter and one extensive spring trip by boat. In this way 

 he visited Nelson Island, the lower Kuskokwim, the lower 

 Yukon, Golovin Bay, and Sledge Island on the north side of 

 Norton Sound, and the Yukon as far upstream as the mouth of 

 the Innoko River. 



Dall returned to Alaska as a member of the U. S. Coastal 



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