A lot. The SSWA is making funds available from this year's Duckboat Show and allocating it toward the refurbishing and installation of radio collars on brant.

There isn't a whole lot of information available on the migration of our brant population. So we are pairing up with New Jersey Fish and Wildlife to find out more about our birds. With the aid of these radio collars, scientists can further study the flight patterns and winter location of this population of brant. They can track these birds and learn a lot about their migrations.

Brant mate for life. Brant migrate to the Arctic Circle and beyond to breed. Brant winter in large flocks from Massachusetts to North Carolina. Seventy percent winter in New Jersey, with Long Island having the 2nd largest wintering populations.

There has been little recent research on the ecology of Atlantic brant. Current information regarding migration routes, timing, and stop-over sites is lacking. This information, along with current breeding colony locations, would be valuable to biologists for making better management decisions.

We hope to continue to collar these birds with transmitters to further aid in these studies.

By the way, if you should happen to harvest one of the brant, please return the transmitter to us so they can be re-used for future bandings.

This is one way our organization can come to the aid of our local waterfowl. We hold these events and raffles to raise money. With these funds we can do something locally to improve our sport.

Curt Matzinger