Each year several hundred birds leave the Yukon with a little extra baggage -- a band that records where they spent their summer vacations.

Jim Hawkings, a biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Whitehorse, estimates that at least 5000 ducks have been banded in the Yukon in the past few years, as well as hundreds of geese and songbirds. The bands provide information about migration routes, population trends, and vulnerability to hunting or habitat pressure.

Much of the banding in the past five years has been part of the North American Duck Banding Program, an international effort to track migratory waterfowl populations. In the past three years, a cooperative waterfowl and habitat study on Old Crow Flats, involving the Canadian Wildlife Service and the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, has made possible extra banding effort in that region.

The productive wetlands of Old Crow Flats and the Nisutlin River delta are the major waterfowl banding areas in the Yukon, says Hawkings. Most of the banding is done in the latter part of summer and early fall.

Bait traps are used for some birds. Grain is scattered in an area until the birds are used to feeding there. Then a wire-and-net trap, baited with grain, is set out. The birds can find their way in through the small entrance, but not out. Bird banders retrieve the birds through a door in the back of the trap, holding them in straw-lined catch-boxes until they can be sexed, aged, banded, and released.

"The important thing is to get them out of the trap as quickly as you can because they tend to thrash around," says Hawkings.

Most of the birds caught in bait traps are dabbling ducks, like Mallards, that paddle on the water surface while feeding on plants and small animal life in the shallows. The biologists also band diving ducks, like Barrow's Goldeneye, but catching them requires a different kind of trap.

In summer, thousands of Goldeneye go to Old Crow Flats to moult. After they have shed their flight feathers and before the new feathers grow in, they are flightless and can be caught in drive traps.

The drive traps are a bit like duck corrals, says Hawkings. People in canoes gently herd the flightless ducks toward a funnel-like entrance. Once inside the trap, the ducks can be removed in catch-boxes and banded before they are released.

"It's quite an art," says Hawkings. "You need quite a few people to do it, and you have to be careful not to capture more ducks than you can handle."

Ducks are given leg bands, but longer-necked swans and geese are often fitted with numbered and colour-coded neck bands. On Old Crow Flats, several hundred White-fronted Geese have been given red neck bands labeled in white. The advantage of the neck bands is that the information can be read through a telescope or binoculars without disturbing the bird. Leg bands are generally retrieved only after the bird has died.

On a continent-wide basis, the information from the banding program helps track waterfowl mortality as a basis for setting hunting regulations. However, in the Yukon hunting pressure is relatively low.

"From our point of view, the most valuable thing is that it tells us where our birds go," Hawkings says. "Then we know what jurisdictions to share information with."

Banding returns show that most Mallards, American Wigeon and Northern Pintails from the southern Yukon head down the Pacific coast to spend their winters anywhere from southeast Alaska to California. The White-fronted Geese banded on Old Crow Flats appear to follow the continent's Central Flyway through the Canadian prairies to the central United States.

"Of all the Goldeneyes that we've banded in Old Crow Flats, the only recoveries have come from the Gulf of Alaska," says Hawkings. "We haven't banded many Trumpeter Swans here, but we sometimes see swans with neck bands. Mostly they were banded in the Minto Flats and Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge areas of Alaska, but some came from Powell River, B.C., and recently a few from the Tristate area of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho."

Anyone can report the information on the bands. Each band carries a unique number that indicates where and when the bird was banded. Some recent bands also carry a toll-free telephone number for reporting the information. Any banded birds (except pigeons) found by the public can be reported to the toll-free number, 1-800-327-2263, in Washington D.C., where the master files for all North American bandings are kept. Alternatively, the information can be reported to Yukon Renewable Resources or to Environment Canada.

Whatever the means of reporting, be prepared to give details of the type of bird, location, date, and how it was encountered, as well as the exact band number. Information about the bird will be mailed back to the finder. Neck band sightings are more difficult to trace throught the banding lab, and are best reported to the Canadian Wildlife Service or Yukon Department of Renewable Resources who are familiar with most of the neckbanding programs involving Yukon birds.

More information about bird banding can be viewed on the world wide web at http://www.pwrc.nbs.gov/bbljohn.htm, or you can contact the Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada, Whitehorse.