Deer Culling Combined With Study For Master’s Degree

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28832, 28 February 1959, Page 12

Deer Culling Combined With Study For Master’s Degree

By deer culling for the New Zealand Forest Service in shooting operations in the Whitcombe block, in the Southern Alps area on the West Coast, a Christchurch student is both earning money to allow him to complete his university studies and gathei* ing material for a geography thesis for his master’s degree in science.

•The subject of ms thesis will be the contrasts between the upper watersheds of the Whitcombe and Rakaia rivers, a description of the land form and vegetation, and the extent of erosion in this region. All ms material for the thesis is being collected by the student during his normal shooting activities In the area.

The student, Anthony Hooper, aged 22, was educated at the Christchurch Boys’ High Scbooi, and completec’ his bachelor of science degree at Canterbury University in 1957. He completed papers for his master’s degree last year, and is finishing his degree, which includes the geography thesis, this year. Mr Hooper is being employed by the service on a “piecework” basis, being paid on the number of deer and chamois he destroys. At the end of the summer shooting operations, late in May, he will return to Christchurch to write the thesis from the material gained during his field work. He has already gained a considerable amount of material during his two months in the block. Most of his observations are recorded each evening, after the day’s shooting. For the remaining three months of the season, particularly with the prospects of considerably increasing ms savings because of the larger tallies of beasts to be had during and after the "roaring” or mating, season he will concentrate on extended trips out on

the open tops high above the river valleys. This will also provide him with first-hand knowledge of the vegetation and extent of erosion above the bushline, and in the high upper reaches of the valleys. As well as the major watersheds of the Whitcombe and Hokitika rivers on the West Coast, and the Rakaia and Mathias rivers in Canterbury, Mr Hooper will cover smaller catchments in this area. Last summer he was a member of a party which carried out a high-country survey of the Hokitika catchment, which extends from the Arahura to the Mikonui rivers, to determine the state of the indigenous forest areas and the extent of damage by noxious animals. He undertook this work to gain a background of the area on which his thesis will be written.