RESEARCH

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21909, 9 October 1936, Page 15

RESEARCH

IKK L* du not comply witb Bn the last column ol excuse us from -'•’b iCm. - 1 '

occasion when IB BraiaSsrfii' article on fish re's vain to obtain cerM- SHhIEb regarding this much W and, on the as--1 SiWlfu vour recent article is *-■ -SpPffSUh knowledge of the I I 'Sp*JI venture to advoSd so energetically for I of a large research i,g salary from the re instrumental ih f I SlNr are the scientific qualii I fee various workers con- - I and are ‘ I implied by the posI degree of university I StlS lately been I isttt&l to the scientist, or I in the quality and I fiffiTtbe work that has been

i in your article that this Tlrtfinie has encountered Krause it has not resulted SffSutfS being immediately filled **i^andgullible trout, but I i&ZzLd you that at least some been offered on the ; it is not a scientific m- | fSSaTand that the greater part I that has been done is 1 The purpose of true researen ! of facts and princiand the only result that can Jfirically expected from it is the yjSSSr Of the information obSSlwEl you inform your readers ffJnffls relating to trout have SSmdki scientific literature as the of the research committee’s Sfraar* of existence? *B5l further statement that no mJaStfan of trout had been pre2r?ttempted in New Zealand merit censure if it were not Sftbf work of Arthur, Hudson, Sftf®lid W. J. Phillipps is per2S‘tbr recorded in the literature of Jffflry as an open and obvious £S£f m ,J y our later assertion SS even in other parts of the world “S «nrk has been barely touched is, Safely, sufficiently extravagant to jMtoseek for local evidence of Jvatoe of this so-called research we SSu-ffie Greenpark fish hatchery KtobKshed under its approval on ffSTheavily polluted stream in Sgbury. and in a locality where of the available ®y“Ser was known to be about Jgges Fahrenheit. Can you teil « tow many hundreds of pounds been spent under “research SteS in Attempts to make this ,Snoit to incompetence function stidßctcrily, and also how many mutoad trout eggs have been destroyed ttet titisycar? Before the advent of w.rrh,’ 1 the processes of hatching fish were merely routine KriL ijut when the research committee embarked on its grand campaign 7 tamng fish some years ago, the nelSSlenployed by this intellectual, body resulted in the destruction of tandreds of adult trout. Despite the tot that almost everything this body bis touched has resulted in disaster, •to flat it has -not performed one piece of investigational work thee has been no lack of scribes to recoii its, praise and advocate its contouance.—Yours, etc., ! G. STOKELL. September 22, 1936. (it Stokell has more than the ordinary layman’s knowledge of renfflrrh and of scientific method. He ‘knows, therefore, that some of the various workers have no academic Idatiflc qualification, but knows tint the possession of a university degree does not guarantee the abllSwWl*dent!st, nor does the’lac*- 1 make it impossible for him ’to dp Valuable scientific work. At to?'rate, all the work has been conducted under the supervision .of Professor E. Percival, whose sdentffic qualifications cannot be called in question. Anyone who has Mowed the progress of freshwater research in this country kqgvs that two Fisheries Bulletins kfire contained the results of work . dpto by the Freshwater Research Committee, that at least one paper has appeared in the Journal of Science and Technology, and that ,lie annual reports of the Auckland wet Southland Acclimatisation Societies Contain long reports on the Mutt? available. Mr Stokell Joints out one error in the article * criticises so obvious that his mention of it merely shows the power of his desire to discredit the Writ of the committee. It was said mat “No work had been done” on mw Zetland freshwater fisheries. What was meant was that no compwnsive scheme of work had dSjkattempted till the Research SMBsmrttee took over. If the authorfflies mentioned by Mr Stokell be tjttwlted, it will be found that by ! the-greater part of .their work IK Concerned with recording ob•SSßtionf made in restricted and that only very little WM an attempt to interpret gleaned. We can only assume ' Stokell’s last paragraph is rjnfHtffli in ignorance. Throughout fega planning and building of the at Greenpark, the comVS n .2* 111 any way con * Suwd— "The Press.”!