POLAR PLANT RESEARCH

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27632, 13 April 1955, Page 2

POLAR PLANT RESEARCH

AUSTRALIAN GIRL’S JOB A girl scientist has her own part to play in the man’s work of. Antarctic research—a behind-the-scenes part which is none the less important in the discovery of the almost unknown plant and animal life. As biological secretary with the Antarctic Division of the Australian Department of External Affairs, Miss Patricia Howard has the work of recording, as it comes in, information sent from the scientists of the expedition teams. Miss Howard gained her bachelor of science degree, with zoology as her main subject, in 1949. She spent a year as a university teacher and demonstrator, and then two years with the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture, before joining the Antarctic Division. Paft of her work now is making arrangements for the “banding” of captured birds at Heard Island, Macquarie Island, and Mawson. Each changeover team of scientists has to be supplied with its quota of bands —lightweight metal rings to fit the legs of the birds, each ring marked “Wild Life, C.5.1.R.0., Canberra.” Of more than 6000 birds so far banded and released, only 18 have been heard of again—but when someone does trace them, the letter goes to Miss Howard. During her two years on the job, she has had letters from persons who have found petrels in places as far apart as South America, South Africa, New Zealand, and Tahiti. Miss Howard records the details of each banding—the date, place, and, species of the bird—and, in the same way, the branding of seals. All this helps in the tracing of migratory paths and the discovery of little-known breeding habits. She records, too, the number of seals which the expedition members find and brand, with the date and place of the branding. The branding enables the scientists to follow the seals’ migration track and discover their breeding habits.

And she has her part in the actual briefing of each expedition—passing on to them requests for information which come in from solitary research workers, from museums and laboratories, both in Australia and overseas. When the team comes back, she helps to sort, dispatch and store the seaweeds, mosses and lichens that come with them. Some will stay in Australia, but others go to the British Museum, and to universities in America, New Zealand, and South Africa.