Alaskan Waterfowl Management— Gabrielson 303 



There are other areas that may be of greater importance than 

 some of these mentioned but little information regarding them 

 is available. It is important to get quick action. The land is 

 almost entirely in public ownership and should remain so. It 

 will be less expensive to protect than it will be to restore, and 

 further, this proposal does not contemplate interference with 

 the present customary uses of such lands. 



An important incidental value will accrue in the automatic 

 protection of breeding grounds of some of the uncommon 

 Alaskan shore birds. Such birds as the Pacific Godwit and the 

 Bristle-thighed Curlew have their chief summer homes in these 

 areas. Other more abundant species such as Red and Northern 

 Phalaropes, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Western Sandpiper, 

 Bairds Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, and Long-billed Do- 

 witcher each have their Alaskan breeding centers in one or 

 more of these areas. 



4. Expand the present fine program of waterfowl inventories as 

 fast as money and man power will permit to cover the major areas 

 adequately. Only by such work will it be possible to accurately 

 appraise the value of the resource both to Alaska and to the bal- 

 ance of the continent. 



5. Expand the present excellent banding program to all major 

 breeding areas. As information accumulates from similar work 

 in other breeding territories, it becomes increasingly evident that 

 birds develop individual or group patterns of migration, and of 

 selecting wintering and breeding habitat that need to be known 

 before intelligent management measures can be taken. 



The Cackling Goose, for example, from present rather scant 

 data, breeds in a narrow coastal strip along Bering Sea, winters 

 in an equally restricted area in the Sacramento and San Joaquin 

 Valleys in California, and seems to follow as a group a definite 

 migration path. Much information is at hand indicating similar 

 definitely marked breeding units for some other species, but 

 with no corresponding information yet available as to the route 

 followed on the wintering ground chosen. Extensive large 

 scale banding is needed to furnish such information as a basis 

 for better management. 



