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Show I UTAH DUCK STUDIES WILL AID REFUGE DEVELOPMENT For years the questions , "where the duck goes" and many ducks are there" have poW fascinating problems for the tion's waterfowl experts. To determine some of the swers, which will have a far-reart" ing effect on future developm!l" of the state's duck and goose ref uges, Noland F. Nelson, waterfowl biologist in charge of waterfo research for the state game A fish department, is conducting teresting studies from his head' quarters at Ogden Bay, The slender Utahn, who learned his business at Utah State Agrlcul-tural Agrlcul-tural college, points out that one of the most interesting and impor. tant phases of the study is the de termination of age ratios in birds" that is, the ratio between the rmJ ber of young birds and old birds " "The thing we are particularly anxious to determine is an accurate accur-ate picture of the number of birds raised each season," Nelson explained. ex-plained. To arrive at the ratio, careful checks are made of each hunter's kill at most of the state's six shooting shoot-ing areas. Nelson has trained several sev-eral aids in the work, and as he points out, "just anyone can't tell whether a duck is a 'grandchild' or a 'grandpa.' " The age ratio for any one season, seas-on, to be of use, must be computed comput-ed from the kill taken during the entire season, Nelson explained. The reason for this is that old birds and young birds do not necessarily nec-essarily migrate at the same time. Many species of waterfowl, Nelson Nel-son said, do not migrate as far as ies popularly supposd. This is particularly par-ticularly true of certain types of geese. "Previous studies as well as those being carried out now, indicate indi-cate very strongly that if we are going to have good goose shooting in this area we must provide breeding areas for the birds," Nelson Nel-son said. Nelson, who asserted that "opening "op-ening day shooting was probably as good as for any preceding year, but has since declined rapidly," has made no estimates as to total numbers of ducks for this season as compared with former years. "Such an estimate must wait until the migration south has been completed," he pointed out. |