Have You Heard of the LAKE MONK EXPEDITION?

It's called a hanging lake, not because it was the place of execution for the unwanted, but because it hangs high in a valley above the surrounding river valleys.

This lonely area, called Lake Monk, deep in the Cameron Mountains of southwest Fiordland, is not a place of retreat for clergy, but home to a few hardy deer and even smaller numbers of chamois. It's a place few hunters have heard of and still fewer have visited. It's rugged and challenging terrain, and with the poor quality of the heads available, ensures that only the odd visitor ever frequents its challenging shores.

THE HISTORY

First discovered in 1951 by Jim Monk, a Fiordland aviation pioneer, its place in hunting history was ensured when Thane Riney, an eminent American biologist working for the New Zealand Forest Service, chose the area for a scientific research project to examine an undisturbed deer population. This was called ‘The Lake Monk Expedition’.

He was an American deer ecologist, who joined Internal Affairs in 1951. This was an environment that was dominated by concepts derived from the Deer Menace conference in 1930, that gave birth to the ‘pest” myth about wild animals. Riney came with an