A tribute to Prof Coop

An annual public memorial lecture to mark the life of NZ's most famous sheep scientist, Emeritus Professor Ian Coop, will be instituted at Lincoln University on 21 May. The public lecture for the man known affectionately as "Mr Sheep" is the brainchild  of the Coopworth Sheep Society and it will be held during the society's 40th annual conference. This year is also the first anniversary of Professor Coop's death, at the age of  93. The inaugural Professor Coop Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Dr Jock Allison, a Lincoln University Bledisloe Medallist and Dunedin-based independent agricultural consultant. Professor Coop's career at Lincoln University spanned 37 years through to retirement in 1978.  He started cross-breeding sheep in the early 1950s at the University's Ashley Dene Farm. He said his aim was to "get some hybrid vigour into the female side of the NZ sheep industry". From the initial production of a Border Leicester -  Romney cross he went on to develop the breed that bears his name, the Coopworth, and it boosted national lambing percentages by 25% . The Coopworth breed of sheep, developed at Lincoln University by Professor Coop and colleague Vern Clark, is now NZ's second most numerous breed. He was a founding member of the NZ  Society of Animal production and his quiet, unassuming influence permeated the whole NZ sheep industry to the extent that he was known as "Mr Sheep". A man of great intellect, Professor Coop held an Oxford University doctorate in addition to his NZ degree, and he was a science liaison officer for the Government in Britain during the war years, involved in radar work.