Expedition To Fiordland: Leader’s Report

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 April 1949, Page 3

Expedition To Fiordland: Leader’s Report

(P.A.) DUNEDIN, This Day. Colonel John K. Howard, of Boston, one of the leaders of the New Zea-land-American fiordland expedition, who has been working for the past month in the'Glaseneck river area at the head of Lake Te Anau, left camp a few days ago and returned to the Te Anau Hotel.

The weather, according to reports, has become too bad for any field work and the colonel and his assistants have decided that they have done as much as they can. Colonel Howard, before going to the Te Anau region, was engaged with the expedition in the Upper Stillwater and Caswell Sound, where his knowledge of wapiti, which the expedition is studying, has been of great value. He was one of the men who originally suggested that an expedition should be sent into the sounds and he went in with the first parties to set up camps at Caswell sound and on the Stillwater river.

Among the many problems that had to be solved about wapiti and deer in the fiordland region, said Colonel Howard, was whether wapiti and deer were crossing. There was a lot of evidence to suggest that they were and many old hunters were sure of it, but it could not be proved scientifically yet. The result of the expedition’s studies in the sounds, he said, would prooabiy be published later as a complete ecological survey of the area and this should be of great benefit in the formation of future policies for this huge national park.