Polish-Born Scientist Retires

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30715, 2 April 1965, Page 3

Polish-Born Scientist Retires

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 1. A prominent scientist who first came to New Zealand as Consul-General for Poland and stayed to become director of the animal ecology division of the D.5.1.R., Dr. K. A. Wodzicki, retired yesterday after 19 years as the division’s head.

During that time he won world recognition for bird and animal studies, and published 32 scientific papers on those subjects and a book on introduced mammals.

The son of a Polish count, whose title he inherited, Dr. Wodzicki was professor of animal husbandry at the Warsaw University Agricultural College for four years before moving in 1940 to Britain. There he worked with Sir John Hammond, an authority on animal reproduction. In 1946, five years after he came to New Zealand as Con-sul-General, Dr. Wodzicki was asked by the Government to report on the extent of damage caused by introduced mammals and methods of effective control. His threevolume report, completed a year later, was used as a guide for later research. The report also showed the need for a permanent animal ecology section, and when one was established Dr. Wodzicki

was appointed director. The section’s first major research assignment came in 1950. a detailed study of the ecology of rabbits at Gwavas Forest, Hawke’s Bay. Gannet Studies Dr. Wodzicki’s gannet studies also have won overseas recognition. Of particular interest was his discovery that young New Zealand gannets crossed the Tasman Sea to Australia within a week or two of leaving the colony where they were reared.

In 1961, Dr. Wodzicki presented to the Pacific science congress at Honolulu a paper dealing with introduced mammals in New Zealand forests. Last year he attended a symposium at Asilomar. California, on the genetics of colonising species.