STUDY OF BIRD LIFE

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22661, 16 March 1939, Page 12

STUDY OF BIRD LIFE

PLAN TO FORM DOMINION SOCIETY I THE PRESS Special Service. 1 DUNEDIN, March 15. A movement which it is hoped will lead to the formation of a Dominion "society to study bird life is on foot. Discussing the proposal, Professor B. J. Marples, Professor of Zoology at the University of Otago, said that the study of birds through caging and ringing was extensively carried out in other countries, and it was hoped that when the society was formed, widespread observations of bird life in the Dominion would be carried out by . ringing butts and then releasing them. ! it was possible when these birds were tpund later to gain valuable informa'Won concerning their habits, their life ' history, and their movements in •changing seasons. , , , , Some work of this kind has already ‘been carried out in Otago and elsewhere in New Zealand. Penguins at Stewart Island, round the Gatlins coast, and on the Otago Peninsula have been ringed, and already the Otago Museum lh«8 received a good many reports of mSKwaM' whiGhj

Indicate that valuable results will be achieved when the scheme has been under way for some time. By this method, it should be possible to determine whether Stewart Island penguins travel up the coast of the South Island. and whether those which frequent rocky bays and inlets between the Otago Peninsula and Bluff remain more or less in one place or visit different colonies. Recently a ringed penguin was found dead on Murdering Beach, beyond the entrance to the Otago harbour, and it was shown that its death was due to the effect of oil discharged from a ship in the neighbourhood of the Franz Josef Glacier. Some keas have been ringed to find whether they cross to the eastern side of the Southern Alps, but the ringing has not been carried out to any extent elsewhere, in the Dominion. Professor Marples said that the society which it is proposed to form will not be open only to those of scientific attainments, but it is hoped that it will attract all persons interested in bird life, so that observations from as many points as possible may be forwarded to a central office, where they may be collected and examined with a view to gaining the greatest possible flmnroit _p£ fnformatiom abonb-birds#