Australian-born Grant Norbury, who now lives in Alexandra, has been in New Zealand for about 30 years.
He has been awarded the Caughley Medal, named for the late Graeme Caughley, who was born in New Zealand then worked in Australia where he was assistant chief of the CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology when he died in 1994.
The two scientists met when Dr Norbury was doing his PhD and a challenge was immediately forthcoming, he said.
"When I started my PhD in Victoria in kangaroos I went up to CSIRO, [Australia’s] big national research institute, and I went up to visit him and his team of people who were doing work on kangaroos in the outback of New South Wales. And I was nervous, you know, and I rolled up to Graeme Caughley and challenged me as soon as I said to him ‘oh, I’m doing a PhD in a national park where there’s too many kangaroos eating out all the vegetation’. And he said ‘well, what makes you think that? It could just be part of a natural cycle, what’s the problem with them eating too much?’ ... that’s the first thing I remember."
Dr Caughley wrote hard-hitting books that were innovative including a circular process that potentially had not been observed or acknowledged previously.
"He was very much into plant-animal interactions and ecosystems."
However, their work diverged as Dr Norbury was interested in theoretical ecology of predator-prey interactions rather than Dr Caughley’s interactive ecology.
The medal recognised the calibre of the scientific work rather than adhering to the same ideology, he said.
It was an honour to be nominated by colleagues and then selected for the award.
Those colleagues include Sydney University Prof Peter Banks and his colleague Catherine Price, both of whom Dr Norbury had done research with.
The third person to contribute to his nomination was one of his former PhD student’s Andrea Byron, who was the director of the National Science Challenge.
It was humbling to be nominated by scientists of their calibre, Dr Norbury said.
Central Otago was attractive to him as he specialised in predator-prey dynamics in dry ecosystems.
"I’m interested in how the whole ecosystem works, what drives predator numbers and what drives their impact on prey."
The prey he was most focused on in Central Otago was native lizards as well as birds and insects.
While things like feral cats and ferrets were known as predators, hedgehogs and mice were also a problem, he said.
While New Zealand was a world leader in killing pests there were other ways to address the problem.
"In these dry ecosystems a more holistic sort of way to protect native species is to allow its habitat, the grassland, shrub land systems to return to native dominance. In other words just thickening them up with tussock and shrubs and complex habitat ... the more you do that in these dry ecosystems the more you push out rabbits because they like it open."
Reducing rabbit numbers reduced the number of predators — cats, ferrets and stoats — and therefore protected the native species, Dr Norbury said.
The award nomination says Dr Norbury’s research into the ecology of New Zealand’s pests — such as rabbits, stoats, ferrets and mice — continued to shape the direction of New Zealand’s national strategy for managing pests, with the ultimate aim of protecting Aotearoa’s unique native plants and animals.
In the nomination, Norbury’s colleagues praised the way his research was both academically rigorous and focused on finding practical outcomes that would be trusted on the ground. They also acknowledged his role as a generous mentor of students and younger scientists.
"... He leveraged more than $450K in corporate funding, and more as in-kind contributions from local businesses, to build Aotearoa New Zealand’s first and only dryland ecosanctuary for lizards. As recently as December 2023, another skink species [the Otago green skink] was translocated to this ecosanctuary, cementing its importance as one of the most critical sites nationally for conservation of Aotearoa’s most threatened and endangered skink and gecko species.
The ecosanctuary is Mokomoko, in the hills behind Alexandra, which is a passion project for Dr Norbury.
"Mokomoko is so important because the public can go there, as long as they do it by appointment, and you can see these critters, you know, up to a foot long ... we’re safeguarding for future generations, aren’t we? ... One of the most rewarding things of doing the project we’re doing out there is to see the kids."
