Moose man branches out into his other four-legged passion

Ken Tustin was having a yarn with his wife one night when they decided to have a "board of directors meeting" and make a plan for the future.

Among their plans, which included "heaps of adventures", Mr Tustin wanted to pick up on some of the projects that he loved but never had time for - like the moose. And the tahr.

Tustin, who lives at Bull Creek, is well known as New Zealand's moose man - he has spent years searching for the descendants of the North American moose released in Fiordland in 1910 - but lesser known is his involvement with Himalayan tahr.

That night, Tustin decided he wanted to write a book about tahr and dedicate it to the late Dr Graeme Caughley, a population ecologist, conservation biologist and researcher, who launched him on a lifetime pathway.

Not a textbook, just a chatty book - "telling how it was for them. And for me". And he did.

It's called New Zealand's Mountain Monarchs but really it is the story of one man and his growing appreciation and respect for a remarkable wild animal through his eyes as a hunter, researcher, pilot and behaviour-study film-maker.

The Himalayan tahr was introduced into New Zealand a century ago for big-game sporting purposes.

From a few releases at Aoraki Mount Cook, tahr are now permanent inhabitants of the sub-alpine zones in the central Southern Alps.

Tustin's involvement with tahr began as a 19-year-old hunting them as scientific specimens for Dr Caughley.

It was extremely dangerous work, with risks posed by bluffs and river crossings, rockfalls and avalanches, but it was also a defining time for the young outdoorsman and a time of great camaraderie.

He went on to study tahr himself as a scientist for the Forest Research Institute, covering many aspects of their population demography, census, ecology, range use and behaviour; the latter involving a direct observation study, living alone in the Godley Valley in a tiny hut for the best part of two years.

That included spending three weeks in residence during a frosty stretch in June, 1976 when the temperature averaged -8degC. It was like being stuck in a household deep-freeze, unable to escape, he recalled.

He found an unlikely ally in a visiting possum, who accepted the hand of friendship - a jam sandwich - after making his presence known with a scratch on the roof.

While he did not normally care for possums, Tustin found it somehow comforting to know there was other life out there.

"There was a kind of cheering kinship, born from shared folly: We were the only two creatures dopey enough to live there."

Supported by some excellent photographs, New Zealand's Mountain Monarchs is not just another hunting book. It's a great yarn about one man and what has become a lifetime interest.

• Sally Rae is an ODT reporter.