Huskies stop off on way to new home

Press, 25 February 1987, Page 1

Huskies stop off on way to new home

By

JEFF HAMPTON

Fourteen bewildered Scott Base huskies flew from the warmth of a Christchurch summer at 9.40 p.m. yesterday bound for the more familiar ice and Snow of Colorado. The departure of the dogs, which are aged from two to nine years, signals the end of the use of huskies at Scott Base, New. Zealand’s Antarctic headquarters. The huskies are the last of a line which first joined New Zealand’s Antarctic programme in 1957. They became obsolete after the introduction of motorised toboggans. “It is sad to see them go,” said their handler, Mr Grant Gillespie, aged 28, of Wanaka. “But at least they are going to a good home and not to the grave.” The huskies, of which three are bitches, arrived at Lyttelton yesterday afternoon in the United States Antarctic supply ship Green Wave. After • they were checked and found fit by

a veterinarian they were put in crates and taken by truck to Christchurch Airport.

They left Christchurch for Los Angeles on an Air New Zealand flight last evening, accompanied by Mr Gillespie. From there they will be flown immediately to an area near Aspen, Colorado, where they will be given three months to

acclimatise before going to the Steger Outdoor Centre at Ely, Minnesota, where they will be put to work for what they were trained to do — hauling sledges. The centre has about 100 other huskies.

The head of the Antarctic Division, Mr Bob Thompson, said that some of the dogs might return to Antarctica.