Fresh Evidence Found Of Muttonbirds’ Migration

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28268, 4 May 1957, Page 10

Fresh Evidence Found Of Muttonbirds’ Migration

(New Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN, May 3. Dr. L. E. Richdale, the eminent Dunedin ornithologist, has reported the first direct evidence that the muttonbirds found in New Zealand migrate to waters off the Pacific coast of North America. Giving details in the latest issue of the quarterly journal of the British Ornithologists Union Dr Richdale stated that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service had informed him. one of its rangers had caught a sooty shearwater (commonly known as a muttonbird) in the Northern Coronado Islands, off Mexico, m July, 1955. 1The bird had been banded by Dr. Richdale at Stewart Island, on February 8, 1950, as a breeding bird. He saw it breeding again in the 1952-53 and 1953-54 seasons. Although muttonbird as a term is misleading, because it describes several different species, the sooty shearwater itself has only been found in New Zealand and North American waters, and it has long been believed that the birds migrate from the one country to the other, although hitherto there ha's been no direct evidence. Population 20 Million Dr. Richdale said today that he estimated New Zealand’s muttonbird population at 20 million. He had banded several thousand of them, but he thought the chances of finding one of them in North America were fairly remote. Muttonbirds arrive in New Zealand from about mid-September

*to early November and leave Sgain, after breeding, from the end of March until the beginning of May. They do not, as far as is known, breed in the northern hemisphere. / Some estimates were that the birds took as little as 14 days in which to make their great journey across the oceans, said Dr. Richdale.

The young of the species are captured for food every year by those Maoris who hold ancestral rights. The season begins on April 1 each year and extends to about the middle of May. After study overseas in the United States and at Oxford and the publication of two books on penguins—“ Sexual Behaviour in Penguins” (1951) and “A Population Study of Penguins” (1957) Dr. Richdale is back at his usual work in the city and endeavouring part-time to sort out his mass of notes and information on the sooty shearwater. He estimates it would take him about three years working full-time to write it up.