STUDY OF BIRD LIFE

Southland Times, Issue 23768, 16 March 1939, Page 6

STUDY OF BIRD LIFE

MOVEMENT TO FORM SOCIETY EXTENSIVE OBSERVATIONS PLANNED (Special to The Times) DUNEDIN, March 15. A movement which, it is hoped, will result in the formation of a Dominionwide society to study bird life is at present on foot in New Zealand. Discussing the proposal, Professor B. J. Marples, Professor of Zoology at the University of Otago, said that the study of birds through caging and ringing was extensively carried out in other countries and it was hoped that when the society was formed widespread observations of bird life in the Dominion would be carried out by ringing birds and then releasing them. It was possible when these birds were found later to gain valuable information about their habits, their life history and their movements in changing seasons, said Professor Marples. Some work in this direction had already been carried out in Otago and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in New Zealand. Penguins at Stewart Island, around the Catlins coast and on the Otago Peninsula had been ringed and already the Otago Museum had received a good many reports of movements of ringed birds which indicated that extremely' valuable results would be achieved when the scheme had been under way for some further time. By this method it should be possible to determine whether or not Stewart Island penguins travelled up the coast of the South Island and whether those which frequented the rocky bays and inlets between the Otago peninsula and Bluff remained more or less in one place or visited different colonies. Recently a ringed penguin was found dead on Murdering Beach, beyond the entrance to Otago harbour, and it was shown that its death was due to the effect of oil discharged from a ship. In the neighbourhood of Franz Josef Glacier some keas had been ringed with the object of finding whether they crossed to the eastern side of the Southern Alps, but ringing had not been carried out to any extent eleswhere in the Dominion.

“The society which it is proposed to form will not be open only to those of scientific attainments,” said Professor Marples, “but it is hoped that it will attract all persons interested in bird life throughout the Dominion, so that observations from as many points as possible may be forwarded to the central office, where they may be collected and examined with a view to gaining the greatest possible amount of information about birds.”