Expedition To Snares

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31239, 10 December 1966, Page 1

Expedition To Snares

An expedition to the lonely sub-Antarctic Snares islands will be made by members of the zoology department of the University of Canterbury in the summer vacation.

It will be the first expedition in a five-year programme planned by the department, which established a small station on the islands in 1961. The leader will be Mr J. Warham and the party will include the head of the department, Professor G. A. Knox, Dr. Stonehouse, Mr P. Johns and a trainee member of the Wildlife Department. The main work to be done will be the improvement of existing facilities at the field station and the marking of tracks as well as laying the foundations for subsequent long-term work in conjunction with the International Biological survey on similar lines to the International Geophysical Year. Professor Knox is chairman of the New Zealand programme. It is expected

that students will do much of the subsequent research. The Snares have been cho-

sen because they are one of the few undisturbed areas of the world. It is planned to make a complete ecological survey of the islands, and to study the New Zealand fur seal, the brown skua, the southern population of the red-billed gull, mutton birds, native flora and endemic species of land birds. The United States Navy is providing transport. The party will leave for the Snares from Dunedin aboard the U.S.S. Thomas J. Gary on December 29 and will land by ship’s boat the next day. If rough seas prevent a landing, the party will be returned to Bluff and will sail again from Dunedin aboard the U.S.S. Mills on January 17. Both destroyers are on picket duty and will call at the Snares on their way back, the Thomas J. Gary on January 21 and the Mills on February 9. Some members of the party will return on January 21 and the remainder on February 9.

The party will be in radio contact with Campbell Island each day or, in emergency, with Awarua Radio.