The Daily Alaska empire., 1949-08-19
BIOLOGIST TELLS
 OF TRIP MADE 10
 WILD5' OF NORTH

seen.
 But when the sky was overcast, it was cold-bitterly cold-and the wind blew the cold through them.
 Yet, there inside the Arctic Circle, they chased ducks and geese on foot, outran them and caught them
 That is the experience being told by Urban c. (Pete) Nelson, Fish and Wldlife Research Biologist, who recently returned from a months journey down the Colville River in the north.
 We caught and banded ducks and geese from Umiat to where the Colville River spreads into a delta on the Arctic Ocean," he re- called
 How did we catch them? Well, you see the birds up there are moulting from the first of July for about 20 days The non-nreed- ing birds moult earliest-they're probably the ones who are unmated or too young or old to breed. The breeding males are next. Finally the breeding females moult, apparently as soon as the young come off the nests. And we caught the birds when their feathers were gone and they couldn't fly"
 Nelson and his two helpers-Dane Walsh and Tom Spin!ng of Fair banks-first flew reconnaissance over the delta of the Colville and up the river.
 Then they left Umiat by boat.
 Seven Miles Per Hour
 When the Colville is flowing, it undermines the banks; and tons of clay and frozen muskeg con- tinually fall into the river. The stream flows at about seven miles per hour, and Nelson described it as "treacherous"
 A day which Nelson said stands out especially in his mind, and serves to illustrate what the chaSes were like, was July IA.
 We were floatinS down the river" he said. "The land around was flat like prairie. There were ponds scattered over the muskeg. Suddenly, ahead of us down the river, we sighted IS or 20 geese on sand bar"
 As usual, the birds dispersed scattered in all directions-as soon as Nelson and his helpers had brought the boat onto the bar and started chasing.
 Three Wild Glasses
 Each of the men went after one of the geese. The bird Nelson was chasing outran him. He dropped his binoculars and overgrown butterfly net as he chased the goose for three miles over the sand.
 Yet the bird got away And when he returned to the boat, the others reported the same thing had hap pened to them.
 As they showed the boat off the sandbar, they sighted the only goose they caught and banded out of the original Is or 20 It was in the shadows, 50 yards away, ly- ing low and doing it's best to hide where there was no place to hide.
 That's the way it went from Umiat to the delta" Nelson said ''The three of us chased geese in the boat until they went ashore Then we chased them on foot Ducks stayed in the ponds on the muskeg, and we split up and chas- ed them alone.
 T had a wool sleeping bag, so I was too cold to sleep more than couple of hours at time. Chas- ed birds day and . well, day and day. There was not night. didn't see real darkness until I came back to Juneau in August
 Had to press Nelson to make him admit it was difficult journey. Even then he hedged.
 Rugged Trip
 Tt was pretty rugged" he said. Plain hard work. But we're sure it will prove worthwhile. We found some very interesting things about migratory waterfowl which should help us conserve them-where they are matched.
 The banding, of course, helps us determine which of the Always they follow, and the open and clos ed seasons can be determined for each flyway accordingly. That aids conservation, too'
 The trip is over. Nelson is show ing pale Southeast Alaskans his arctic suntan.
 And he's telling them, if they ask, that his next trip will be an attempt to take mountain goats alive and use them to stock Chi chagof, Hinchinbrook and Kodiak Islands