Party Of Scientists To Visit Auckland Islands

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29913, 29 August 1962, Page 12

Party Of Scientists To Visit Auckland Islands

A party of overseas and New Zealand scientists will visit the Auckland Islands for one month during December and January. It will be the first major scientific expedition ever to be sent solely to these islands, and the first such expedition to visit them for 50 years.

The leader of the expedition will be Dr. R A. Falla, director of the Dominion Museum. Wellington Overseas members will Include Dr. J C. Yaldwyn. curator of Crustacea and coelenterata at the Australian Museum 1 Sydney; Dr. L. Gresnitt, entomologist at the Bishop Museum, Hawaii: and Dr P James, lichenologist, at the British Museum of Natural History, London New Zealand workers will include Dr E. J God ley. director of the Botany Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Lincoln, and Dr F J Fisher, of the same division; Mr J. Dumbleton. of the Entomology Division of the departmen* at Lincoln; Dr R K Dell and Mr J Moreland, of the Dominion Museum; Professor G. A Knox and Mr P Johns, of the zoology department of the University of Canterbury: and Mr J. B Wright of the geology department of the University of Otago The expedition's base will be at Ranui cove, in Ross Harbour at the northern end of the main island, where the buildings used by the “Cape Expedition" coast-watching parties of World War IL are still standing. It is hopen to

have a small vessel in the area to help with transport around the islands and to dredge for the marine zoologists Transport generally is being arranged by the Antarctic Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The Auckland Islands are a rainy wind-swept, uninhabited group about 200 miles north-west of Campbell Island. They are, perhaps. most notable as the scene n f many disastrous shipwrecks, including that in 1866 of the bullion ship General Grant The entire group is less than 32 miles long by 15 miles wide. The islands were discovered in 1806, and made use of for many years by whalers and sealers An attempt in 1849 to settle a permanent European colony on the Islands failed dismally, the settlement being abandoned after three years A settlement of Chatham Islands Maoris was equally unsuccessful. The first major scientific expedition to visit 'he islands was the party sent to the subAntarctic islands in 1907 by the Canterbury Philosophical Institute. Some scientific information was also collected by Sir Douglas Mawson's Australasian Exploring Expedition of 1912 and by the “Cape Expedition." The islands support a wide range of flora, generally quite closely related to New Zealand mainland species but mostly distinct from them and of great scientific interest There are numerous varieties of land and sea birds and two species .of resident seal