New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts

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Letter to the editor

Jim Ring1 David Eccleston2

1Waimea College, Salisbury Road, Richmond
New Zealand
2Nayland College, Nayland Road, Nelson, New Zealand

Abstract Russell (1983) contains many interesting observations and results on the food and feeding of rocky reef fish of north-eastern New Zealand. However, we are concerned about the tendency to draw negative conclusions from very small sample sizes. The dangers of drawing negative conclusions about animal behaviour have been well illustrated in the past. For example, it seemed well established that powerful carnivores such as lions rarely killed members of their own species (Lorentz 1966), or that chimpanzees were strict herbivores. However, more detailed studies showed that these conclusions were wrong. Morris (1979), a student of Tinbergen, emphasises that the one thing on which the latter did insist was that workers should exercise extreme caution in making any statement about an animal's behaviour. We wonder what evidence Tinbergen would have considered, justified negative statements about an animal's behaviour.

New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1986, Vol. 20: 329-330 Received 10 June 1985, accepted July 12 1985

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (110K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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