FIORD COUNTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26749, 19 April 1948, Page 4

FIORD COUNTRY

SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION PLANNED AMERICAN LEADERS P.A. AUCKLAND, Apl. 18. Operating from a remote base canto in the heart of the mountainous fiordland of the South Island, a group of American scientists will lead an expedition to virgin and only partly-sur-veyed country between Milford Sound and Lake Te Anau early next year. Colonel John Howard, the American sportsman who spent three weeks in the area last year in search of wapiti specimens, will return to New Zealand in February to take charge of the arrangements. Some of the American scientists attending the Pan-Pacific Science Congress, to be held in Auckland, will form the nucleus of the expedition. It is planned to spend about three months in the fiords districts. In addition to investigating the development of the wapiti nerds, which originated from imported American stock, they will carry out other scientific research For this purpose the New Zealand Government has been invited to send representatives to take part in the work. They will probably include scientists from the botany and geological branches of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and engineers from the Hydro-electric Department. The party will operate in wild forest fastnesses that are unknown to most New Zealanders and that have never been fully explored by sportsmen or surveyors.

Small working camps will be established at each centre of investigation, and in the Te Anau district there will be a base camp with accommodation for 40 people. It will furnish an elaborate headquarters for research, witn full facilities for indoor work when the weather prevents the members of the expedition from operating in the field. Its importance is emphasised by the fact that fine days in the mountainous country sometimes only average one in 10. Colonel Howard returned from his previous expedition to the fiordlands entranced with the beauty and interest of the country he had seen. His objecr, on that occasion was to secure representative wapiti heads for Harvard University Museum, and in shooting a mature bull,- an immature bull, and a mature cow he obtained the exact specimens he required. He said he could have shot many more, but he sought only particular types of animals from the herds.