Research View | The University of Montana

Professor travels to 'amazingly
interesting place'
As summer arrives in Missoula, it’s winter on the other side of the world.

In fact, everything in New Zealand seems to be backwards or upside down, according to University of Montana biology professor and Fulbright Fellow Fred Allendorf, who was down under from September 2000 until his return to Missoula in mid-May.

"I went outside at 6 a.m. to see the full moon one morning, and Orion was high in the sky," Allendorf said. "However, it wasn’t until the next morning that I realized that Orion was upside down; his head was at the bottom, and his sword at the top."

Allendorf divided his time in New Zealand between Christchurch and Wellington, where he studied genetics and the conservation of small populations. He also taught a graduate seminar on conservation genetics. His stay is funded by a Fulbright Scholar Program grant, one of about 800 awarded to American educators and professionals in 2000-2001.

"I chose to go to New Zealand because it’s an amazingly interesting place for a biologist from North America," he said.

In letters home to friends and family, Allendorf’s observations about life south of the equator sometimes bordered on the bizarre. Whether wading with eels -- "They feel like a tube of Jell-O wrapped in smooth satin" – or learning about scientists’ efforts to create "fart-free" sheep, he takes a keen, playful look at New Zealand and Australia.

So that Research View readers can learn more of Allendorf’s adventures down under, we’ve reprinted here selections from his letters and snapshots in a travelogue format.

--Patia Stephens

Mount Ngaruhoe, one of three volcanic peaks in New Zealand's Tongariro National Park.

Adventures
Down Under
A Travelogue by
UM Biology
Professor Fred Allendorf

Sept. 17, 2000
We’ve had a good first week in New Zealand. We arrived on Monday after four movies on a 12-hour flight from Los Angeles to Auckland. The travel highlight was bumping into Charlton Heston in the L.A. airport. The weather was chilly when we arrived, but we knew it was spring when we passed a blooming forsythia bush on the drive in from the Christchurch airport.

Everything here seems to be backwards or upside down: the seasons, the stars, the sun, the moon, the cars, the light switches, etc. I went outside at 6 a.m. to see the full moon one morning, and Orion was high in the sky. However, it wasn’t until the next morning that I realized that Orion was upside down; his head was at the bottom, and his sword at the top.

The mountains were beautiful and full of native plants and critters. ... Keas are large alpine parrots that live a life of mischief. They love to pull anything rubber – windshield wipers, etc. – off of parked cars; they also ride on the back of grazing sheep, peck through their skin and eat their kidneys.

Fred Allendorf and his wife, Michel Colville.

Fred Allendorf, here attending a conference reception in Wellington with his wife Michel Colville, spent the first half of his stay at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Christchurch. The couple then "shifted" to Wellington, where Allendorf researched and taught at Victoria University.

Oct. 10, 2000
We drove to a farm on Lake Hawea ... and were picked up by a helicopter that took us to the Hunter River, which is the major tributary of the lake. We spent the next few hours electrofishing [catching fish with an electrical current] in a small tributary of the river. The highlight of electrofishing was a long-finned eel that was about five feet long. ... An amazing creature. Biologists still do not know where it spawns. It’s thought that it spawns someplace northeast of New Zealand in the deep ocean. The young larvae are then swept by ocean currents back to the coast of New Zealand, where they make their way far upstream. Their larvae climb up steep waterfalls and have even been found climbing up the vertical concrete walls of dams to continue their journey. Males usually spend some 25 years in freshwater before they return to the ocean to spawn and die. However, females can sometimes spend up to 60 years in freshwater before becoming sexually mature. One large eel had 15 baby duck feet in its stomach. The eel that we found was probably a 40- to 50-year-old female. It was tough watching her lay on her side in the shallow water as she tried to recover from the electrofishing; she did finally swim away about five minutes later.

The scenery throughout New Zealand is beautiful: great mountains, the ocean and interesting vegetation. However, there is a real "emptiness" of animal life. Birds were the only native large terrestrial vertebrate, and nearly half of them have gone extinct since the Maori people colonized New Zealand less than 1,000 years ago. All of the large flightless birds, such as several moa species, are extinct. A beautiful but empty landscape remains.

Oct. 24, 2000
On Monday we flew to Wellington to check out our living arrangements for when we "shift" (i.e. move) there in January. ... Wellington is very different from Christchurch. It is much more cosmopolitan, and is the capital of New Zealand. Wellington is like San Francisco, and Christchurch is like Omaha, only it’s on the coast.

Nov. 21, 2000
Sheep. Everywhere you go in New Zealand, you see sheep. ... There was an article in the Christchurch paper recently about New Zealand’s difficulties in reaching the Kyoto protocol for greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealand is unique among the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development nations in that its main greenhouse gas is methane, rather than carbon dioxide. Methane is 25 times more "potent" than carbon dioxide in causing global warming, and is produced primarily by the 40 million or so sheep in New Zealand. Scientists are trying to develop a "fart-free" diet for New Zealand sheep. Now I know why the ozone hole is over the South Pole!

Charles Daugherty, Fred Allendorf and Mike Thompson.

Fred Allendorf is flanked by Charles Daugherty (left), a UM graduate who heads the Victoria University of Wellington School of Biological Sciences, and Mike Thompson (right), professor at Australia's Sydney University. The trio was on a field trip in Nelson Lakes National Park.

Dec. 21, 2000
Christmas down under is a real mind-bender. Intellectually, I know it’s Christmas, but somehow my deeper being refuses to accept it. We had the official NIWA [National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research] Christmas party yesterday at a local winery. We sat outside in the hot sun .... Somehow light decorations developed to celebrate the darkest time of the year seem a little out of place during the summer solstice.

The biggest point of conversation at tea over the last two months has been the U.S. presidential election. Dubya is viewed down here by the media (and people) as being poorly qualified to be President. The media keeps mentioning that Bush has never been out of North America.

Jan. 10, 2001
[At] Golden Bay on the extreme northwestern tip of the South Island ... we fed, felt and played with about 30 long-finned eels at a former farm where they have been feeding eels since 1922. Unlike the previous eel-feeding we saw, which was a frenzy of dead chickens and dog food, these eels were well-behaved. They would wait quietly with their heads above the water until they were poked with a stick full of "mince" (hamburger). They would then suck the mince off the stick. We stood in the water with the eels while they were fed. They feel like a tube of Jell-O wrapped in smooth satin.

Feb. 12, 2001
We took a trip ... to Tongariro National Park in the central part of the North Island. It is a high plateau full of volcanic activity and thermal features. It is dominated by three large volcanic mountains ... Lake Taupo is the largest lake in New Zealand and was formed by volcanic eruption 1,800 years ago. It is the largest explosion recorded in human history. The Chinese and Romans reported darkened skies during the day and blood-red sunsets in 186 A.D. ... Lake Taupo is famous for monster rainbow trout that descend from a single batch of eggs imported from the Russian River in California in 1883.

Darwin visited New Zealand in December 1835 while on the Beagle. It wasn’t his favorite place, to say the least. According to Darwin, the welcome cry of Maori to calling ships was, "Come on shore and we will kill you and eat you all." Here is Darwin’s last New Zealand journal entry: "Dec. 30^th – In the afternoon we stood out on the Bay of Islands, on our course to Sydney. I believe we were all glad to leave New Zealand. It is not a pleasant place. Amongst the natives there is absent that charming simplicity which is found in Tahiti; and the greater part of the English are the very refuse of society. Neither is the country itself attractive." Unfortunately, Darwin saw very little of New Zealand. He spent only about 10 days at the far north of the north island.

Allendorf hiked the 18-kilometer Tongariro Crossing with UM graduate students Dave Tallmon and Kim Hastings. Mount Ruapehu, shown here, is another of Tongariro National Park's volcanic peaks.

Feb. 25, 2001
[UM] grad students Dave Tallmon and Kim Hastings stayed with us while attending a meeting here on the Ecology of Insular Biotas. We visited two nearby islands as meeting field trips [and] went tramping in Tongariro National Park after the meeting. ... Our first island field trip was to Matiu/Somes, a small island in the middle of Wellington harbor. The island has been used for quarantine (people and animals) and a prisoner-of-war camp over the years. ... It became rat-free about 15 years ago after a massive series of poisonings. A number of threatened species have been translocated to the island, including tuatara and giant wetas. Wetas are Orthopterans (grasshoppers and crickets) that became large and flightless as they evolved to occupy niches used by rodents other places in the world. There are over 100 weta species in New Zealand. The Maori called them "gods of ugly things."

The award for most unusual experience goes to Aussie rules football. Aussie rules is a game invented to make use of cricket fields in the off-season; it resembles a combination of soccer and rugby. ... There are 18 frenzied players on each team who run around for two hours. There are also eight officials on the field. To make things even more confusing, four water boys also run around on the field during play. The Brisbane Lions made short work of the Adelaide Crows .... Aussie rules was not a big hit with Kiwis. According to the local newspaper, "the sight of heavily concussed Adelaide ruckman David Gallagher groggily trying to convince the trainers to leave him on the field received the biggest cheer of the night."

The Maori came to New Zealand about 1,000 years ago [most likely from nearby islands]. Their culture is based on relationships, living and dead. "Real" Maori can recite from memory their entire 20-generation ancestry since arrival in New Zealand. They have a selective memory; after all, there are over two million ancestors in a 20-generation pedigree.

New Zealand is currently struggling with conflicts between Maori and pakeha [New Zealanders of European descent]. This became real when we left the marae [a traditional Maori meeting house] ... with great affection for Maori and their struggle. The pakeha shuttle driver immediately told us that "Maori are OK, but they just can’t accept the present. They complain about all the land that was taken from them a long time ago, but they don’t appreciate all of the wonderful things that the pakeha have given to them."

Allendorf and buddies from Victoria University of Wellington share a six-pack of Moose Drool shipped all the way from Missoula's Big Sky Brewing Company. Allendorf is a friend of Big Sky vice president Brad Robinson, also a UM graduate.

March 24, 2001
Autumn has arrived here in the Southern Hemisphere. Mornings are becoming dark and cold. For some reason, autumn in March is much harder to "get" at a deep level than was spring in September. I’m still having a great time, but I’m beginning to miss the Montana spring. Rumor has it that buttercups are beginning to bloom on Mount Jumbo, and the hummingbirds will be returning soon.

The last month has been relatively uneventful. In fact, the most exciting event was a cricket match, a sure sign that I’ve been down under too long.

The highlight was a trip to Perth to give a seminar and visit the University of Western Australia. Perth is a large, modern city on the coast of southwest Australia. It has a fantastic Mediterranean climate that is similar to San Diego. ... Perth felt like the United States in many ways. From the air, Perth looked like western Montana without the mountains. Large expanses of trees and brown hills surround Perth. I felt like I was in "anywhere" western USA on the drive from the airport. ... It felt good to be on a continent again and see large numbers of native birds and other animals. We saw kangaroos bound across the road just like mule deer in Montana.

Some people from the Northern Hemisphere who haven’t been to Australia and New Zealand have the impression that they are biologically similar since they’re less than 1,000 miles apart. However, Australia and New Zealand are very different worlds. The trees of New Zealand are actually most closely related to trees in the forests of South America because of continental drift. New Zealand is lacking all of the "neat" things from Australia: kangaroos, snakes, eucalyptus trees, etc. The only similarities are a few birds and a bat that managed to cross the Tasman Sea from Australia and colonize New Zealand.

Michel and her friend Judy Christy just returned from a fantastic two weeks in Bali, which is near the equator 2,000 miles north of Perth. They had a very warm and humid time. I’m now sure that Michel still loves me. She got a fish tattoo on her left arm while in Bali. She claims it’s temporary; we’ll see.

Enjoy your Northern Hemisphere spring!

Professor Fred Allendorf returned to his position in UM’s Division of Biological Sciences in mid-May.