Fishery Expert Reluctant To Go

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30442, 16 May 1964, Page 3

Fishery Expert Reluctant To Go

(N Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 15. It was with great reluctance that he had decided to leave New Zealand to accept a East with the Fisheries esearch Board of Canada, said Mr K. R. Allen in a statement todav.

Mr Allen’s resignation as director of fisheries research in the Marine Department was announced recently. He said he was particularly sorry to be going at a time when the New Zealand fishing industry seemed to be on the verge of new and exciting developments, and when the Government had already begun to make provisions for the increased staff and finance that was needed if research was to be able to meet the needs of the expanding industry. His new position had been offered to him last Septem-

ber, but he had deferred accepting it as long as he could in the hope that sufficient organisational changes could be made to provide the conditions which he, as a scientist, believed were essential for efficient research and for the recruitment and retention of the high-quality staff which were needed.

The changes which had now been agreed to and which were mentioned by the Minister of Marine (Mr Scott) in his recent statement, were moves in the right direction, said Mr Allen. He had been happy to help in this reorganisation, and he hoped that it would provide a foundation from which fisheries research in New Zealand could be built up so as to be able to meet the challenging times ahead.

Though it was true, Mr Allen said, that the salary he had been offered was considerably higher than that available under New Zealand salary scales, this had had little influence on his decision. Much of the difference

would, in any case, be absorbed for some considerable time in restoring the losses involved in re-establish-ing his home in Canada and in relinquishing 25 years of superannuation. In his work in Canada, said Mr Alien, he would be concerned with a variety of fundamental problems in the management of fisheries resources. and one of the first of these would be the whaling situation in the North Pacific—work which would be closely related to that he was now undertaking for the International Whaling Commission.

He said he had much appreciated the opportunities he had had in New Zealand to develop his work in this field. He hoped to be able to keep in touch with developments here and to continue to help in any way he could in the application’ of research to New Zealand fisheries so that the best possible use could be made of the resources existing round New Zealand coasts.

Mr Allen hopes to leave New Zealand for Canada early in July, but before this he will be spending the greater part of June overseas. He will be attending a series of meetings in England and Norway organised by the International Whaling Commission.

At these meetings Mr Allen will be a member of a small committee of scientists which has been set up by the commission to undertake an independent investigation of the state of Antarctic whale stocks and to advise on the way in which whale-catching should be regulated.