Graham Metzger

1. EXPERIENCE IN AOTEAROA/NZ COASTAL ENVIRONMENTS

CRAWFORD: Tiny, I think you said how old you were in the introduction, but I’m not sure. In what year were you born?

METZGER: 1932 in Invercargill.

CRAWFORD: What was the first memory that you had of New Zealand coastal waters, when you were a young guy?

METZGER: The first thing I can remember is at the Mokomoko. Over here at the Mokomoko Inlet, where the family had gone over there Floundering. The road went across the Mokomoko to get to Omaui. This is where Michael is building his crib there now. The access there was across the mudflats. The road stopped on this side, went across the tidal zone, and then picked up on the Omaui side. The first thing I can remember about anything to do with the sea - is being in a pram, being pushed through the rising tide, with the water ... [laughs] they didn’t know whether they were going to get to the road, before it wet me. Because the wheels were under the water. [both laugh]

CRAWFORD: The tide was coming in?

METZGER: Yeah. [laughs]

CRAWFORD: And the race was on? [laughs]

METZGER: Yep. That’s the first thing I remember. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. You were born in Invercargill, but did you grow up here in the Bluff? 

METZGER: No. I grew up here at Greenhills, which is five miles up - right at the very top of the [Bluff] Harbour. 

CRAWFORD: I’m going to guess that because you grew up in Greenhills, as soon as you were of an age that you could be walking around and doing things, you were probably spending a lot of time close to the water?

METZGER: Oh, absolutely. There was a channel, a bit of a hole ... we played on the beach right from the day one, sort of thing. The whole school used to go for a swim each Wednesday around - depending on the tide, go for a swim around in this channel. Probably only from here to the front street, we’d walk around there and go for a swim. This was when we were at primary school. But then I got a canoe made out of a sheet of iron [chuckles], but it was well done - the iron was flattened out, and it was quite a good shape to canoe. I had that from - I don’t know what age - probably eight or nine. 

CRAWFORD: So, swimming and canoeing. Did you ever go out fishing when you were a kid? 

METZGER:  Oh, yes, yes. My Grandmother was married to one of the Spencers, one of the big families in Bluff here. She was married to a Spencer initially, so she had Uncle George and Uncle Stewart from that first marriage. Uncle George built a crib at Tiwai’s side, at the back of Ocean Beach. He fished in a boat that he made - a 12-foot dinghy that he made from there, out the back of Ocean Beach. And Uncle Stewart ... There’s a little inlet they call Bull’s Harbour at the back of Greenhills where we lived. He built a little crib there, and fished from there in another 12-foot clinker dinghy that his brother, Uncle George, built. I would go out fishing with them, and we would catch what we could carry home. That was long after I had a boat of my own. When I was still at primary school, I went trapping Rabbits because you got money for Rabbit skins in those days. I went Rabbit trapping, and made enough to buy my own dinghy. I suppose I might have been fourteen or so - don’t quite remember what age I was. I was halfway through primary school when I bought that boat. 

CRAWFORD: Were you spending most of your time in Bluff Harbour? Did you ever come out to the big water?

METZGER: Yeah this is Uncle Stewart’s - see that little neck there? 

CRAWFORD: Yes. 

METZGER: That’s where Uncle Stewart had his boat. And Tiwai’s side here, was where Uncle George had his boat. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. You have jumped into something I was hoping we were going to talk about down the line. But one thing I’ve learned about these discussions is that you just go with the wind. The freezerworks - several people have talked here in Bluff, and elsewhere, about the importance of these freezerworks and the processing plants that were discharging raw or semi-treated animal guts to the sea. Out into the foreshore or the nearshore region. When did the Ocean Beach freezerworks start up? Do you remember that? 

METZGER: Oh, it was long before my time. Long before. 

CRAWFORD: This is the one that's now shut down - the facility on the southwest side of the road coming in to Bluff. It would have been a major employer at the time? 

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: It was just yesterday that, for a couple of different reasons, I drove in to the site and ... I didn’t realize that there are still a whole bunch of people who are using space in the back for their operations. 

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Fish sheds and things like that. 

METZGER: Yep. Cando Fisheries and all that. 

CRAWFORD: Interesting also - in the little parking lot right next to it, where the metallic arrow is, there is a sign that says this is a site of major effluents. The reason I’m so interested is that there are so many people talking about the response of White Pointers to these types of places where significant amounts of blood or guts or organic material are being dumped into the sea. 

METZGER: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Right. When you were talking about fishing in the clinker dinghies with your Uncles - was that line fishing? 

METZGER: Yeah, just line fishing. 

CRAWFORD: Mostly for Cod?

METZGER:  Blue Cod. There was a couple of patches you’d get a few Trevally off, sometimes, and some good Groper. Really good Groper. 

CRAWFORD: What was a 'really good Groper'? 

METZGER: Oh, you know - that long.

CRAWFORD: Almost a metre?

METZGER:  Yeah, yeah. But you don’t get them now, because fish are ... you buy Groper now, and they’re about the size that Cod used to be. [chuckles] And they don’t catch them on a line anymore, like we used to. They trawl when they’re young and in schools. 

CRAWFORD: Right. So, you were inside Bluff Harbour, and to an extent outside too - when you were fishing with your Uncles? 

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Were you doing anything else, on or around the water, in terms of activities? Were you doing any kind of distance swimming, or any other types of activities further afield? 

METZGER: Yeah well, that’s right. We would do all sorts of things. There was a big Seagull rookery over here, and we’d take big baskets that we made for carrying the guts down and feeding the fish on the Muttonbird Island. We’d take them round here, when there was too many Seagulls - the Blackback gulls. We'd take an egg out of each nest, and carry them home, and take them all around the people in Greenhills, and they would bake the Christmas cakes. And there was Whitebait up this creek here, that I was telling you about. 

CRAWFORD: Was there really? Whitebait? 

METZGER: Yeah. On a decent day from the top of the hill you’ll see that creek that goes in - straight across there. And the arm of course goes way up here. The smelter’s down here, and it goes right up here. Where the bridge comes across here, there’s a channel comes in to here too. There’s a Flounder patch there, there another Flounder patch straight across there around Tiwai's wharf. There’s two or three good Flounder patches over there. And down here, just round the corner of Papakaia used to be a good Cod patch. But when they dredge the Harbour, that’s where they take all the spoil and dump it. So, the good habitat that was there, is now covered in sand. 

CRAWFORD: Was that the first time that they dredged the harbour? Or had they been dredging all along? 

METZGER: Oh, no, no. It was still ok when they had the old bucket dredge. The guy that was a year ahead of me in our apprenticeship, lived in the last house here in Bluff, round the point there. Arthur Mulley. And he built a 14-footer - a clinker dinghy - when we were still doing our apprenticeship. I’d come down and hold the dolly for him, and that sort of thing. And we'd just shoot across the harbour there in behind Papakaia, and get a feed of Cod. Another one straight down to Woody Point - there's a beacon round there now. So yeah, there was little patches where you’d fish round about. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. A couple of things that you mentioned there ... when you talked about your apprenticeship - what was that apprenticeship for?

METZGER: Carpenter. 

CRAWFORD: How old were you, when you started that? 

METZGER: Well, I only went to secondary school for a year. And I was offered this apprenticeship - I'd be about 15 or 16. When I first started work, then I carried on going to night school. 

CRAWFORD: I seem to remember you telling me that you got into boat building at some point.

METZGER: Oh yes, yeah 

CRAWFORD: As a profession? 

METZGER:  Well, I helped Uncle George build boats. And Arthur - the other apprentice - I helped him build his 14-footer. And also, I was a coxswain. One of my uncles, Uncle Boy Haberfield - not the Spencer ones. The Spencers Muttonbirded on Horamamai, and my Grandmother Muttonbirded there with Spencer. When Spencer died, she married Haberfield, and he Muttonbirded there - on Womens Island, they call it. This is where our family still Muttonbirds. 

CRAWFORD: We’re going to talk about your Muttonbirding experiences coming up shortly. But just finish up your story about your apprenticeship, and the boat building - you were right in the middle of telling me about being a coxswain ... 

METZGER: Yeah, Uncle Boy was a coxswain. He rowed in a pair, with a guy Tait from Greenhills. The club gave them a pair, a wood skiff, to take to Greenhills. And they kept on Colyers Island, which is there. 

CRAWFORD: Yes. 

METZGER: And I was their coxswain, I steered. So, I grew up doing that. And I loved it, because they would row down to Bluff here, it’s only five miles from there to there. They would row down to Bluff, and meet up with the West boys and all of them from the club here. And they'd have a few sprints up and down, and then we’d row away home again. 

CRAWFORD: That was yet another thing you were doing on the water. How often were you involved in rowing? 

METZGER: Well, I started rowing competitively when I start my apprenticeship - at either 15 or 16. They didn’t have school rowing then, it wasn’t until after I was coaching they had that. Yeah, we put a little crew together. And you were a youth oarsmen until you were 21! [chuckles]. And of course, we rowed and rowed for years before we had a win. But then, when we got up around 18 or so, we’d go seasons unbeaten, you know?

CRAWFORD: Was that a seasonal thing? Summertime only?

METZGER: Yes, yes.

CRAWFORD: And in those days, roughly how many days a week would you be out rowing? 

METZGER: Every night after work. And the Bluff ones used to go for a run over the sand hills, as well as having a row. I hopped on the bicycle, and I would bike from Greenhills down to the rowing club, and then back home again - instead of running over the hills. 

CRAWFORD: Was that pretty much all of your time on the water then?  Or were you still out fishing every now and again? 

METZGER: Always, yes. 

CRAWFORD: So, you were on the water a lot?

METZGER: I loved the water, yeah. Whenever it was fine enough that one or the other of the Uncles was out there ... I used to get horribly seasick, when I was young. [laughs] I remember Uncle George, one day we were out there and we got all rolly. And I was horribly ill. He was going out the next day too. And I turns up and he said “You coming out today, after yesterday?” I said "YEP!" [laughs]

CRAWFORD: Did you spend any time elsewhere along the coastline of South Island? 

METZGER: Oh, yeah. On the full moon we would go to Oreti Beach for Toheroa - that’s the shellfish that you can take. We were always taught that you never took fish that the moon could get on, because it would poison it. You’d be moonstruck. Toheroa lived under the sand, so the day after the full moon and the new moon, usually - you'd go out to Oreti Beach, and the old people would sit up on the sand hills and yak all day, while us kids had to go and get them. [laughs] And you were taught which ones to take. If you put black stripers in your kete and brought them up ... “That's a Mummy one. You take that back, and put it where you got it” [laughs] And I wouldn’t have a clue where I got it, but I’d look and find a little hole and put it in. [both laugh heartily]

CRAWFORD: Did you do any fishing along Oreti Beach, or in the bay here?

METZGER: No, no. Just around this area here. And Floundering too, like in this Mokomoko here along the other side. That was a great place for Flounders. No freezers or fridges or anything in those days. So, if anyone in the little township went and got Flounders ... you’d get up in the morning, and there'd be a great heap of Flounders in your safe, you know? 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

METZGER: When we went Floundering and that, up at Joey's there, up here by alongside Spencer’s Island, that’s pretty close - you know? There's an old boat up on the side of that island there. There’s a channel goes alongside there. Oh, yeah - Uncle Stewart, Spencer, he had a boat on this side, down there on his in-law's property. Just here at Green Point. So, we’d shoot out there, and get a feed of Flounders there with the net. But in the Mokomoko, it was pretty prolific there. When we went out there netting for Flounders, you’d get ... I don’t know how many, but you’d bring them home in a sack. You know, the old jude sacks you used to get? And just full of Flounders in them. We use to have to get on our bike, and take them all around to all the people in Greenhills, you know?

CRAWFORD: Yep. Just before we move on ... the freezerworks had been running since before you remember?

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: And it discharged into Ocean Beach. But you and your Uncles were fishing in that general region?

METZGER: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: Was there ever any concern that the effluent from the freezerworks was somehow going to taint the fish you were catching? 

METZGER: No. They were never worried about it. 

CRAWFORD: There were never any kind of illnesses or sicknesses that were associated with the freezerworks, that you recall? 

METZGER: No. It was only maybe bits of lung or stuff like that. It was concrete - it's probably still there, the concrete gutter - about that size. Went right down. Yeah, there was stuff going down there.

CRAWFORD: Those pulses of discharge, they would have been associated with whenever they had a bunch of animals coming in for slaughter of whatever?

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. What was the next new thing to happen - especially with regard to your time on the water? 

METZGER: Well, each year we would go down to Pikomamaku for an annual catch of birds. 

CRAWFORD: When did you start Muttonbirding? 

METZGER: Well, I was taken in a kaue as a baby. I missed five years while I was doing my building apprenticeship. And then I missed another year, when it blew so much that we never got there. I missed this last season. I suppose I’ve missed about nine seasons in my lifetime. 

CRAWFORD: So, you’ve got 74 years with Muttonbirding, and 9 misses lifetime?

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: There were two different Muttonbird Islands you referred to before. One was down here on the eastern side of Stewart Island, and one was on the northeast of Edwards Island in the Northern Titi Island chain. Throughout those 74 years, did you Muttonbird on a mix of both islands, or mostly one island? 

METZGER: That one, all the time. When Stewart Island was sold to the Crown, there were a few neighbours who would not accept any money, but they were going to keep those islands. Ours was one of these - known as ‘beneficial islands.’ But there were some people who accepted money, so the Crown took thse Titi Islands - known as ‘Crown islands.’ 

CRAWFORD: The Southern Titi Islands and the Northern Titi Islands? 

METZGER: Yes, yes. Here and there, were islands that were known as the Crown Islands. 

CRAWFORD: Who was it that was selling the islands? Was it an Iwi-level decision? Was it a community-based decision? 

METZGER: It would have to be a whānau decision. It would be the people of that island that would agree - that they would take some of that money. 

CRAWFORD: So, island by island - the decision was made?

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Please tell me about the rules of access to a Muttonbird island, and the rules of what practices are appropriate for Muttonbirding on that particular island. Are those all family decisions? 

METZGER: I was only a kid, but I can remember when the old people made the rules, overall rules, for the Titi Islands. They took them to parliament and ratified - that’s law. That’s the Rakiura Titi Island regulations. That’s law, and that applies to all of them. But then every island has its own tika. L-O-R-E [laughs] The Crown once had their L-A-W and we had our L-O-R-E. 

CRAWFORD: You grew up, from the earliest days, being immersed in this annual pattern of activity. When is Muttonbirding season?

METZGER: From the first of April, to the end of May. The mother birds would all leave different times each season, but roughly they would leave the 12th to 14th or so of May. Depending on the moon, and the weather patterns related to the moon, all that sort of thing. And then the kaikarakas would leave about a fortnight before that - roughly. Leave their young ones, to make their own way later. With our island - you can see how big it is. Even though the season starts on the first of April, we never ever went before the tenth of April, because the family always said "There’s no good catching chickens. We want proper birds." [both laugh] Someone probably got growled at, for bringing chickens home, yeah. That would have been said 

CRAWFORD: When you and your family are Muttonbirding, do you take six weeks out of whatever it is you’re doing, and live the six weeks on the island? 

METZGER: Yeah. The Granddaughter that was just here when you come in. She’s the accountant for the Harbour Board. When she did the contract for the job, she had it written in that she can take her holidays regardless of what happens throughout the rest of the year - she can take her holidays to go Muttonbirding. 

CRAWFORD: And there are very strict rules as to who has access to those islands at other types of the year, right? 

METZGER: Yes, yes. It’s a hereditary thing. There's Pikomumakanui - nui is big. So there's Pikomumakaiti - Little Piko, and Pikomumakanui - Big Piko, which is our island. The Bradshaw side of the family and ourselves - those two islands were Haberfield-Bradshaw islands. But the Bradshaws stopped going there, and the Crown took that one. Just in my time, I was just young, but because there was no one working that island, the Crown took it. And gave it to ... so other people could apply for it. They're still doing it - that's the way it is now. People who have outgrown an island, can apply to go to a Crown island. Some of these ones on the small islands, that the family kept on going to, the Crown would give them a manu on that island - which they had no right to at all. There was a guy, bared his backside to the Queen when she was here once ... He also went to the United Nations with a list of the acreage that Māori had been given initially, at the time of the Treaty - and the acreage that there was each decade from that, because the Crown just kept on taking it. He took that to the United Nations, and that embarrassed the government that much at that time, that they gave the Crown islands and Whenua Hou back.

CRAWFORD: Whenua Hou is Codfish Island? 

METZGER: Yes. Yeah, the Crown gave them back. 

CRAWFORD: Back to the Iwi?

METZGER: Yes. Saying that they gave Whenua Hou back - we’re allowed to go there with a permit because Department of Conservation run it. [laughs] But the other islands, the ex-Crown islands done with the same tikanga and everything that they always had. And now they’re trying to sort out getting those families that don’t belong on some of the Crown islands, putting them back where they belong sort of thing. If it’s possible, because it depends on how many of the family kept birding and all that.

CRAWFORD: So, you have a lengthy, lifetime, consistently nearly-annual experience during April-May with the family island and nearby waters in the Northern Titi Island chain. When you are there, are you there in only one part of the island, or are you there pretty much around the entire island?

METZGER: We’ve got the entire island to ourselves. Actually, the Granddaughter that was here ... We have rights on more than one island, because of the way the original families were - way back. So, I’ve got rights on Potama, that one there, and Pohowaitai. And there’s a lot of birds on those islands - as you can see, they're bigger. 

CRAWFORD: Those rights come to you from family intermarriage? 

METZGER: Yeah. Even when she just started school, she had to do a composition on different things, and "You do one on Muttonbirding." Anyhow, this composition came home ... You know, the first half of the season you catch them in the burrows, in the holes. Beginning of May they're coming out - it varies a lot when they start to come out, like I said - depending on the moon and the weather, all that sort of stuff. But roughly when you start in May, going in and catching them at night time. They won’t come out in the moon. They like it rough and windy and wet. There's Owls and that, predate them. Your best catches are on the rough, windy, dark nights - when there’s no predators that they need worry about. Even the Hawks, what do you call them the Australasian ...

CRAWFORD: The Harriers?

METZGER: The Harriers, yeah. When they killed all the Rabbits on the mainland here, I think every Hawk that was in New Zealand went down to the Titi Islands. [both laugh] And started to breed there, you know? They would sit on some bush somewhere, and when a Titi come out at night with enough moon to see, they would kill it, and then back on their perch until the next day, and eat it then. So, that’s why the birds won't come out when it’s light. But anyway, she did this project and when we’re out in the island, you've got the first part of the season when the birds are still in the nest, and the Mums come and feed them there. You put your hand into the koi, and if you bring your hand out and it’s got down on it, there’s a bird lives in there. So, you work away, and dig a hole down into the nest in the burrow to catch it - all sorts of things. And we did, we'd dig down into the burrows on our island because the growth - the soil structure and the growth of roots and trees just binds it. You plug that up again. You’re taught how to do that, right from when you’re a kid. In fact, the adults would be catching, and you’ll be plugging. And then they’ll check your holes to see if they’re plugged properly. [chuckles] And then the roots from the trees grow through it again, and reinforce it, and it's good again. But some islands where the structure of the soil and that is different. There are places where the soil is underneath the vines, patches and that - that soil is so fragile, you don’t go there. You just leave it alone. And the tracks cut round those areas that you don’t go near. You’ll get them at night, at torching time, and they come out onto the tracks where it’s clear. They come out where it’s open and clear, to flap their wings and strengthen up, and all that. But there’s some islands where they won’t let them dig pouru, to get in because of the soil type. So, like I say, each island is a bit different. 

CRAWFORD: Yes. That’s what I’m going for. It’s not just different as a place, and it’s not just different in what some would call the ecology of the place. It’s different in the customary management of it?

METZGER:  Yep. 

CRAWFORD: I think you’ve done a good job of describing your Muttonbirding experience generally. I’m also specifically interested in your experiences on the water to and from the islands. Back in the day, what kind of boat did you take? 

METZGER:  My grandfather was a great mate of old Bill Johnson ... the Johnson’s lived in Horseshoe Bay. We always went to and fro from the island with them, as long as they had a boat available. 

CRAWFORD: So, you went to Horseshoe Bay first? 

METZGER: At times. It depended on whether we could get on the island. You see, we’re out in the Strait here. Also, my Grandmother’s Brother lived in Halfmoon Bay, and fished out of there. And sometimes we would go from Bluff to Halfmoon Bay in Tamatea - the old ferry boat. And then we would go from there, out to our island with uncle Bill when it was calm enough. We might be there ... oh, sometimes you’d be there for days, waiting for the weather to be calm enough. 

CRAWFORD: When you did go over, what size boat did you take that would get you over to the island?

METZGER: In a 40-foot fishing boat, and then ashore in a 12-foot dinghy. 

CRAWFORD: So, relatively small boats?

METZGER: Yeah, but this is only to go from the boat to the shore. We would go in a fishing boat. Either from here or here.  

CRAWFORD: So, from Halfmoon Bay or from Bluff?

METZGER:  Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Go on a fishing boat, over to the island. 

METZGER:  And then from the fishing boat, into the landing, we would go into a 12-foot dinghy.

CRAWFORD: Yes, I understand now. 

METZGER: I actually drew the plan and built myself a V-bottom boat, which is out there in the shed. When the Daughter and Son-in-Law bought a fishing boat, we went in that. This is latter years. With the quota system and all that, I ended up selling the thing because at that time Ngāi Tahu’s bosses were barking at us, because the Māoris didn’t have the experience of running business. These Pakehas were leasing out that quota they got as part of the Ngāi Tahu Settlement. The Tribe the formed a partnership with Sealord - the Sealord Deal. Well, they were giving fishermen that weren’t Māori quota to catch that fish, as long as they put what they had as quota through the factory. So, they’d make more money than a Māori who had no quota. If you can pick up what I mean?

CRAWFORD: Yes, I think so. For our discussion about your Muttonbirding, the trips to the island were on fishing boats. But the fishing boats themselves can’t get right to the island, so you have to take a 12-foot dinghy to get to the island shore. I think that Michael has also told me that in later years, people actually fly over in helicopters?

METZGER: We’ve gone by helicopter for - oh, probably ten years or so now. 

CRAWFORD: Right. But back in the day, in your early days, that kind of boat trip was how you got there?

METZGER: Oh yeah, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Which means that you had time on and around the water, at that particular time of year, and that’s part of your experience that I’m trying to describe. Because there aren’t a lot of people, especially non-Māori, who spend any significant amount of time in and amongst the Titi Islands at that time of year. Pretty much just the Muttonbirders and the people who are supplying them?

METZGER:  Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Back to my previous question - when you were on the island, were you pretty much on the island, or were you going back and forth on the boats on a daily or weekly basis?

METZGER:  Oh no, no, no, no. Once we’re there - we’re there. I made a trolley ... We used to have flying foxes to let our catch down onto the landing, and then into the dinghy. I worked away there for a few years, and made a windlass and a trolley that I could let right down onto the landing. I made that so I could put my dinghy on that trolley, and wind it up there too. So yeah, this is down a cliff. But it worked. It was good to have a little dinghy there, because there were days when some of the family - we could put the boat on the water. This is Foveaux Strait - you’ve got New Zealand blocking the tide off coming from east to west. On the south side of the island, pretty much southeast side, the tide’s going this way or that way. And there was a great spot for fish, just round there. Put the dinghy in, and go around there. You’d catch them as fast as you could haul them up. 

CRAWFORD: What kind of fish? 

METZGER:  Trumpeter or Greenbone. Greenbone’s a net-fish they reckon, but with Muttonbird hearts on a hook, you’ll catch Greenbone flat out. 

CRAWFORD: Straight up linefishing?

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. That leads naturally to a question I was going to ask you. When you and your family are on the island, and you’re Muttonbirding for six weeks or so, how common would it be to go fishing? 

METZGER: Every day, except when it’s too rough. You go out and you catch birds, you pluck and scald them, and hang them overnight to set. You’d get up before the flies get around in the morning - this is before we got the buildings they've got there now, with screen doors and all the rest of it. But you still cut up first thing in the morning. So, you’d have 400 weight of guts. Heads, feet and guts and wings. You would take that just straight down below the house with a fishing line on top, pluck a few hearts off, throw your line in, and catch tea. And then you throw the guts in and feed them. 

CRAWFORD: What time of the day are we talking here? You said first thing so, 7-o’clock? 8-o’clock?

METZGER: Yeah, you’d be late at 7-o'clock. You’d be up at 5, and have breakfast, and you'd start at 6-o’clock. 

CRAWFORD: Dawn?

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. This is a part of Muttonbirding I knew nothing about. Especially when you describe it in such a way that you’re taking the remnants of the harvest - caught them overnight and processed them - and then you take the remnants down, and some of the remnants you put on hooks to go fishing. And then the remainder gets dumped into the water?

METZGER: Yeah, yeah. And what the Gulls don’t get - the Korure and Mollymawks, and all the birds - what the birds don’t get, the fish get. 

CRAWFORD: So, it’s the birds that get the most of it?

METZGER: Oh no, no. It's the fish that get most. All the heads go straight down. And the fish will come right up, and grab it. The guts with a lot of kato on it, will float. That’s the fat - it will float. And the fish will come right up and grab it, and pull it down. They’re there waiting. 

CRAWFORD: What’s the nature of the shoreline? Is the water quite deep, or is it shallow? 

METZGER: Just stand up. And poke your head through the door - look up above the door [at a photograph]. That's the island from the Motunui [Edwards Island] side. Looking east. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. 

METZGER:  Here's the two houses. And our landing is just here. 

CRAWFORD: Is it as steep below the water, as it is above the water?

METZGER:  No. It’s steep in places. It’s really steep around here. Where we are, we've not got a great depth of water there. The boats knew where you could go in there, but if they weren’t experienced they wouldn’t. It’s shallow in here, round this side here. This is all boulders, over in this area here. 

CRAWFORD: When you were Muttonbirding on the island, taking the remains after the harvest down and putting them in the water - did you ever see any Sharks? 

METZGER: Never. Never ever seen a Shark until this guy started [cage diving]. 

CRAWFORD: When you dump the bird remains, it goes into the water and the birds and the fish are right on it?

METZGER: We did. We did have.

CRAWFORD: Did that change over time?

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: How did it change? 

METZGER: As soon as they started the Shark watch at Motunui, we got nothing. 

CRAWFORD: What do you mean 'you got nothing'?

METZGER: There were no fish. 

CRAWFORD: You got no fish coming up to get your discards?

METZGER: No. I haven’t worked that out. The stuff is still going in. 

CRAWFORD: The stuff is still going in where? 

METZGER: The guts are still being put in the water, the same as it has been done for generations. And it wasn’t until Shark watch started over here ...

CRAWFORD: At Motunui - at Edwards?

METZGER: At Edwards Island. You could fish away there for an hour ... Well, I’ll tell you what.  Laura, the granddaughter that was here last time, her husband, who is also Ngai Tāhu ... even though they have rights on other islands down there, Bob had never been Muttonbirding. And unless you are taken as a child, it’s not easy to teach people. You've got to grow up with it. And that’s where I‘m lucky, because all of our family went. But Bob's exceptional, really. He is really good. One of his jobs was to take the guts down every morning. Every morning he would put the fishing line on the top, and go down, and he’d try for a fish. 

CRAWFORD: So, he’d put a Muttonbird heart on a hook ...

METZGER: Put the hearts on a hook, throw it in before he threw the guts in, and he'd come back up with nothing. From when that started there, we were supermarket gatherers. And he come up with a fish once "Oh! Look what I got!" 

CRAWFORD: Let’s talk about the old days. Before the Shark cage diving, you would definitely get birds and fish at the discard. The fish would actively come up, and get the harvest or discard that you were putting in the water?

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: You don’t recall ever seeing, or anybody ever talking about Sharks coming up at the discard?

METZGER: No. Never, ever seen a Shark there. 

CRAWFORD: Even to investigate? 

METZGER: No. There's another thing we need to take into the equation, as well. The fact there was no Seals in those days. Now there is. You see the old people never let Seals near a Muttonbird island. And now, they’re totally protected. So, those Seals are coming up and destroying the habitat of ... it’s not just Muttonbirds that nest in those holes, it Kuakas, wee Island Petrels - this is on our island. The type of bird life you have, varies with the different areas. But on our island the first birds to nest in there are the Kuaka, and the next bird is the Parara. Kuakas - you just get a pair in each hole. Parara you get half a dozen in different parts of the hole. And they spoil a lot of holes, because - the mouth of the hole is here, and it runs to the other corner of the table, they’ll have a nest here, nest there and nest there. The one down here will make its own entry, to get into there without going all the way up there. And a Muttonbird will never nest in that hole again, with another entry up there. That woman Jones that come and interviewed us, and pretty much lived with us ... She went to the Marae to do a thing on preservation - preserving of food for the winter, how did the Māoris do it. Anyway, they sent her down here. She learned to make baskets, she came and helped get kelp bags, into the bush and all sorts of things. She wrote this little ... I’ll give you one of those. I'll have a spare one somewhere. And on the front of it, it had "The Metzger family birded on this island. And they farmed birds."

CRAWFORD: They farmed birds? 

METZGER:  And I said "Oh, we don’t farm them. We just go catch them." She said "I’ve written up all the things you’ve told me, and I’ve checked with other people as well." She had a lot of stuff there. All the different groups, and everything on this thing. She’d done a lot of stuff apart of from what I’d told her. But she said "Plugging up them holes, propping up their take-offs when the tree dies. That’s farming." [laughs] And actually, when Henrik Moller, when we finally got him onto Motunui [Edwards] down here ... Half the people there didn’t want them, so Henrik pulled the pin. And then a cousie of mine, Janey Davis invited him onto her island. They got cracking, and the more research they did, the more people wanted them to have a look at their island as well. [laughs]

CRAWFORD: Yes, I've heard. 

METZGER: Now, ask any of them people who wouldn’t have him, and they’ll say "Oh, that's the best idea we ever had." [both laugh] There was only five of us who fought to get that research done. I've been a member of Forest and Bird for eons, you know. And I knew that they had the ear of government. And these people were catching birds and it had to stop. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s go back - because you said something that I didn’t really know about, which is the customary Seal management practices around the Titi Islands. Seals were actively discouraged. They were prevented from colonizing - in the old days. Is that correct? 

METZGER: Oh yeah, yeah. Seals are ... they’re really intelligent animals. Have you ever seen them in the circus or some of them marine places? 

CRAWFORD: When I was a kid, yeah. I saw some of that.

METZGER: They teach them to do all sorts of things. Well, the old people would hassle them. When they first started coming to our island, I used to put the dog on and chase them away. But then they - government or whoever - decided they were totally protected, so you couldn’t touch the bloody things. But the old people always sent them on their way. 

CRAWFORD: Why?

METZGER: Because of the fact that they destroy the habitat of the birds. When they come ashore, they squash it. Flatten those holes. Somewhere, I’ve got a photo of an island round Preservation Inlet that used to have quite a good cover of soil. And it was covered in Kokomoka. Something like that island there, where we've often got a feed of birds off. That little island there, it's about the size of that. And it’s covered in Kokomoka, which is a hebe sort of thing. It's a bush. The guys that went fishing round there, they would go ashore on that little island and get a feed of birds when they were fishing, you know? In the season. The skipper of the Kumea took a photo of them with huis of birds on the shoulder. And this island’s covered in bush. Then he was telling me that once the Seals took over, they flattened that bush, and all the holes, and the soil all got washed away. And now it’s a rock, covered in Seals. I got him to take a photo of that. There's the two photos. One covered in bush with birds. A rock covered in Seals. 

CRAWFORD: That’s an excellent story. I think I understand. Do you remember roughly when the protections for the Seals came in? 

METZGER: No, no. I’m hopeless. That's why I'm looking back through my diary to see something. 

CRAWFORD: Would have been in your 30s or 40s, roughly? 

METZGER: No, it goes back quite a way. But protection wasn’t strictly, you know ...

CRAWFORD: Enforced? 

METZGER: Hey, they’re totally protected, and you’re meant to abide by that. But people didn’t. So, then they clamped down on it. And you’re going to get fined this much, if you’re caught. All that. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. When do you remember the Seal numbers starting to really go up? Especially around the northern Titi Islands? 

METZGER: Roughly 25 years ago. When the Sealers came out here ... that's why they always employed Māori, part of the crew. They would employ Māori, because they knew. These Seals all said "Hey, we’re not going to breed here or stay here. We're going to go and live over there, because they don't touch us over there." So, the people controlled Seals, you know? Then, it was before the war - Harry Roderick, his boat was called the Kekeno, it’s now up there in Rotten Row. Because the Seals had increased a lot at that time ...

CRAWFORD: When was this? 

METZGER: Well, it was before the Second World War. Harry was given a right to take so many hundred Seals, and he took them from the Solanders and Preservation Inlet, around there. Because that’s where they were thickest. And those Seals said "Hey, let’s not live here. We’ll all get shot. We'll go live on them Titi Islands." [both laugh] That’s when they first appeared. 

CRAWFORD: Whether it was those specific Seals, or not - the point is, that was about the same time?

METZGER: They were a novelty. If you seen a Seal - "Oh, gosh. Come and see the Seal!"

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let's get back to your observations from Muttonbirding. All through that time, when you were Muttonbirding, you were taking your harvest remnants and - after some fishing with the bird hearts - discarding it for the awaiting birds and fish to eat. But at about what point in time did you start to notice that the fish weren’t coming around? 

METZGER: It wasn’t until Shark watch started that we lost our fish. But there had been Seals there for years before that. But not in that many numbers.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Shark cage diving started about eight or nine years ago. After an exploratory phase, they kept coming back to Edwards Island for a combination of maximum consistency in Shark numbers, and protection from wind and wave. Once the permitting system was brought in, it specified they could only operate in proximity to Edwards Island ...

METZGER: The reason they go there is because we get our weather from the west mainly here. Coming this way. The tide’s coming through here, and the wind’s coming through here. Edwards is a long, narrow island. And right in the middle of that, on the east side, is the most sheltered part you would get - anywhere in that area. So, that’s where they put their mooring. But sometimes you’ll get an easterly. So, they put mooring on the west side as well. But, hardly ever used. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. When you were Muttonbirding, did you ever go out in the dinghy - further offshore, or around to the other side of the island? Or was it pretty much just shorefishing, right there at the discard spot? 

METZGER: Let me see ... Daniel’s now 30 - it would have only been in the last 15 years that we went round the corner in the dinghy that I built there. What we call the Old Fishing Point ... the Uncles and them used to go down the cliff with a rope, to a place where we went in the dinghy. They’d go down there on a rope, and fish from there.

CRAWFORD: Shorefishing?

METZGER: Yeah. They’d throw the line out from the shore, and they would get a fish there when they couldn’t get out for the weather, just below the house. You know?

CRAWFORD: At the discard spot? 

METZGER: Yeah, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Did you or anyone else use setnets or anything else for fishing there? 

METZGER: Well, the Johnston family - and there’s about three generations of Phillip Smith's family, you know? That was their living. Setnetting in that area. Some of those guys would fish in our area, but never while we were on the island. 

CRAWFORD: Really? 

METZGER: Yeah. When we were on the island, they wouldn’t come anywhere near it. They would set in other places. They’d leave the fish there for us, while we were there. 

CRAWFORD: Yes, I think I understand. Ok. I'd like to get back to your apprenticeship. Roughly at what age did you start boatbuilding? 

METZGER: About 24. Back and forth with carpentry.

CRAWFORD: From the time that you have a young family onward, what were the typical kind of activities on the water? Were you fishing? 

METZGER: Catching, rowing, taking Scallops. We were always on the water.

CRAWFORD: Probably some swimming in there as well?

METZGER: Always. 

CRAWFORD: Any fishing in there?

METZGER: Yeah, a bit of fishing. I’d promised the boys, we would never impact on their Crayfishing round Waitutu when we went for a Mataitai [reserve], you know? All we wanted was up around the shore - there was always Pāuas there - you could get them without even getting your feet wet. Only at a really high tide you couldn’t get them. That’s all we wanted. 

CRAWFORD: What region? 

METZGER: This is quite a bit up round the coast actually 

CRAWFORD: Up towards Fiordland?

METZGER: Te Waewae Bay, Port Craig, Sand Hill Point - our lodge is between the Wairaurahiri and the Waitutu Rivers.

CRAWFORD: Is this where Henrik was talking about - there’s a jet boat that takes you up there?

METZGER: Yep, yep.

CRAWFORD: Ok. When did you start spending significant time at the lodge?

METZGER: Not until we got the settlement. We wanted to log that. The way that we are logging the compensation government land now ... but all the 'greenies' in New Zealand knew better, and "We shouldn’t touch that." So, we did a deal with government that we didn’t touch it, and we got twice as much land of beach forest. So, we could keep the contract we had to log.

CRAWFORD: When was this, that you started spending time up along that coast?

METZGER: Well, always. But not really there, because we used to get kicked off our own land. There was all these hunters from Tuatapere and round about, “This is our hunting spot!” And they’d make it that unpleasant that we'd end up going somewhere else. But now ... we write out the permits for hunting on that land now. [laughs]

CRAWFORD: But when did you start to spend more significant amounts of time up there - west of Te Waewae Bay? Roughly?

METZGER: Around about 1995. 

CRAWFORD: Was your time on the water mostly shuttling back and forth? Or did you spend a lot of time on coastal waters in this region as well? 

METZGER: No, no. Mostly on the land, hunting. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. But that's still an important activity, because if something important had been happening there, you would have seen or heard about it.

METZGER: Yeah, right. 

CRAWFORD: Around Porridge and Garden Bay, I'm guessing you didn’t really spend any time along there? 

METZGER: No. 

CRAWFORD: What about these islands here ... like Escape Reefs?

METZGER: Well, I did fish around there a bit. I helped a guy I’d rowed for Southland with, and then he got a job with my boss, and he built a 40-foot boat at Ohai. I wanted him to buy a plan off of Athol Robb - I’ve always liked his boats, a design that I really liked. “No, no, no. Too expensive.” So, he bought a plan off of a boat builder in Invercargill who served his time as a baker. [laughs] Anyway, he set off to build this boat, and it had a bow on it like a stern. It was a tug. And I redrew it from midship forward. He ended up with this boat, and it was a good old boat, too. But yeah, I’d been around Escape Reefs with him because he lived at Riverton, and this is where we fished along there.

CRAWFORD: Roughly when was it that you were fishing the around Escape Reefs? 

METZGER: About 1965.

CRAWFORD: Ok. You talked earlier about spending significant time with the kids in the community, and your own kids growing up. What did you start doing with your kids, on and around the water, as they were growing up? 

METZGER: Robin and Paul started rowing when they were about 14 or 15. I’d built a little boat before that too, just to muck around in that - just like I used to.

CRAWFORD: That was in Bluff Harbour that they were rowing?

METZGER: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Ok. That would be the ‘60s, maybe early-70s. What other types of things besides rowing were you helping the kids with? Swimming? Fishing? 

METZGER: Oh, we’d go get a feed of Flounders - that sort of thing. 

CRAWFORD: All the places you used to go fishing when you were young? 

METZGER: Yeah. There's a bank here, and the Flounders would all wait there until the flood tide, and then go up.

CRAWFORD: Did you spend any time with the kids on the ocean side here - as you had with your Uncles?

METZGER: No, not as much. I was going to build a boat shed. Uncle George had a crib and a boat shed earlier. I took a boat over there. I did quite a bit out of there, because I used Uncle George’s shed for quite a while before that. Yeah, I had a boat there, and I fished out of his shed. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Did you spend any significant time in the coastal waters around Stewart Island? Either in Paterson Inlet, or anyplace else around the coast? 

METZGER: Oh, yeah. The Grandmother’s Brother - their son Bobby was about my age. While we were windbound at Halfmoon Bay, we would go up here ...

CRAWFORD: Into Paterson Inlet? 

METZGER: Yeah. Go up there and get Scallops. We’d get a Shanghai prong out of the bush. A stick with a fork on it. Cut them off so that you’d get a handle down here and the fork here. Get some netting wire, make a basket on here. And you’d sneak along the channel going up here - you had the flat part, and then you’d drop down into a channel. The Scallops used to sit just along the top here.

CRAWFORD: Just next to the channel? 

METZGER: Yeah. You'd sneak along there, and get the net, and bring it up carefully. If you disturbed then too soon, they’d be off into the deep. But if you get in the right position, they’d just flip straight into this thing you made, you know?

CRAWFORD: Yep. [both chuckle]

METZGER: And we’d get feeds of Scallops up there. 

CRAWFORD: So, when you were stuck on the island because of the conditions, you would spend some time during the Muttonbird season in Paterson Inlet?

METZGER: Yep, yep.

CRAWFORD: What about coastal waters around the rest of Stewart Island?

METZGER: No. Probably only been round here once or twice, over to Codfish.

CRAWFORD: And the Ruggedies?

METZGER: Yeah. And up round - what do you call them - the Bishops! Up round here. 

CRAWFORD: A couple of times in your life?

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: What about the Southern Titi Islands?

METZGER: No. Never been.

CRAWFORD: Even though you have family connections and customary rights? You’ve always focused on ...

METZGER: There. Just there. 

CRAWFORD: That one island in the Northern Titis. That’s just what you do? 

METZGER: Good and handy. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. What about Pegasus? Down on the southeast side of Stewart Island? 

METZGER: Only been to Pegasus a couple times. 

CRAWFORD: Ok.

METZGER: That’s another thing. The Whaling base was up in here, and I took scouts in up there for camps and stuff, too. There was like a playshed in that bay, just this side of the Whaling base. I can’t remember the name of it.

CRAWFORD: The Whaling base at the head of Paterson Inlet?

METZGER: Yeah. Not quite the head - just in there. 

2. EXPOSURE TO MĀORI/LOCAL/SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS 

[Effect of Māori Culture and Knowledge = Very High]

[Effect of Māori Culture and Knowledge = High]

3. WHITE POINTER DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE

CRAWFORD: What do you know about where White Pointers aggregate in this region?

METZGER: All the time that I was boatbuilding, there was never any Sharks caught really. 

CRAWFORD: Not immediately around the Bluff Peninsula?

METZGER: Well, one of the Whaitiri caught one. This is not long ago - just in the last twenty years probably. When they used to have a fishing contest here. They went out fishing, and they come in with a big Shark.

CRAWFORD: This was one of the Whaitiri that are associated with Ruapuke?

METZGER: Yes, yes. My Uncle and I only had that problem with a Shark once over there. But the Low family ... there was three or four families had cribs, and they used to fish out of there. But one particular family always seemed to get into trouble with Sharks, somehow or another - they used to strike them all the time. They used to get drums, old steel fuel drums and get a bridle put round them, and a chain and hooks with bait on them. And they would try and get rid of the Sharks that way. 

CRAWFORD: That was at Ocean Beach?

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: When you say "try and get rid of them" - it was Sharks in general, or White Pointers in particular?

METZGER: I wouldn't really know. Big Sharks though.

CRAWFORD: One thing about the Māori side that I would like to understand, and please forgive me if there are cultural kinds of things that don't get talked about. Whether it’s tapu or otherwise - just let me know. The Pakeha literature says that there is this Māori concept of 'mako taniwha' and 'mango taniwha' - 'taniwha' in general, applied to White Pointers. What is the nature of taniwha? It sounds like it can be different things, at different times, for different people. But it’s not clear to me as a Pakeha what that is. 

METZGER: Well it’s ... what would you say ... some fish or animal or something that’s gained the respect of many gods, sort of thing really. We never ever had anything like that down here. But yeah, further north in some parts of the country, they wouldn’t do this or that because it was in taniwha hours - that sort of thing. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. We talked about the history, pre-contact and some of the history post-contact in this area. We talked about importance of the Sealing and the Whaling activities in this area, post-contact. In general, when you were a kid, was there still a fairly strong sense of that Pakeha Sealer/Whaler culture in this region? Or had it died out and been replaced by some other culture? Where there still fairly strong echoes when you were a kid? 

METZGER: Oh, yeah. There’s quite a few of the older people that had been involved with the Norwegians. There's a lot of the Islanders have come down from Norwegian people. When I was a kid, there was still gear there from the Whaling base. They still used to use the slip. They had nothing to pull it up with, but they used to put a 3- or 4-fold tackle on the slip, and steam the boat out and pull another boat up the slip. They still have that slip up over there, to where it was based. And there were still people alive who had done trips with them, Whaling.

CRAWFORD: So that sense of culture associated with the Whaling days - it is still there on Stewart Island. And you’re right, it becomes a very important part of the conversation with some of the Islanders. What comes from some of those discussions is that the relationship between the Whalers and the White Pointers was actually a fairly complicated thing. Because you cannot have Whale carcasses, without attracting some significant attention from Sharks.

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: And especially when you think about the old days, they were processing these Whales at sea. So that the Whale was tied off next to the vessel, and there was somebody standing on that Whale carcass, flensing and removing blubber - that type of thing. And these big Sharks were right there. Should that person fall into the water, it was a clear and present danger. When you follow that danger into current times, it seems to have ended up in a 'them versus us' kind of thing. If a White Pointer came across that unwritten line into Halfmoon Bay, it was considered reasonable to remove that Shark from the system. 

METZGER: Yep. And what’s wrong with that? The reason that Sharks became less, was not because people doing away with any that come around different areas. It was because of these big vessels that caught them and cut the fins off them for the Chinese. That that’s how they become depleted. Those Sharks at the back of Ocean Beach - they seemed to hassle a lot of boats. So, those people that were more or less fortunate than us, they would do what they could to get rid of them. Because not only did they get brought around there because of the offal coming in, but they used to hassle their particular boats and their fishing and everything. So, why wouldn’t you get rid of those ones? If there’s Sharks coming up to the Whaling base, and tearing stuff off the animals there that they’re flensing? Why wouldn’t you try to get rid of those Sharks, because there’s other Sharks out there. But we don’t want this one living here. The other thing is, no matter where Māori went - which has changed now, unfortunately, with a lot of young ones and older ones too. They’ll just take whatever’s there. They’re out to get whatever they want. But you know the tikanga was that you would not take any more than what you needed. That you would also learn to implement any strategy that you could enhance the resource that you were taking. And find ways that you could look after it. With Muttonbirding, Henrik found that what we do on the islands - actually there’s more surviving breeding stock come from our island where we catch thousands of birds, than what they are on the Snares and other places where they’re left to themselves.

CRAWFORD: Islands where there is no Muttonbirding?

METZGER: The Muttonbirds are there, alright. 

CRAWFORD: No Muttonbirding, though?

METZGER: No. There's no harvesting there. They’re left to themselves. And there’s not as much breeding stock survives there, than what there are on our islands, you know? 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

METZGER: So, this is the sort of thing that you were taught from when you did your apprenticeship with your Grandparents. 

CRAWFORD: If I’m getting what you’re telling me, when Māori are thinking about what to do and how to do it - it becomes a family- or hapu-level discussion. Potentially, if it’s important enough, it could go all the way up to bringing all the hapu together to discuss?

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: And then it is socially- and culturally-embedded. 

METZGER: That’s right. 

CRAWFORD: It includes the individual, but is not limited to the individual. It includes the family, but is not limited to the family. 

METZGER: That’s right. Our Titi regulations, there's the ones that cover all of the islands that they’re all in tune with. And they took them to Parliament, and had them ratified - that’s law now. But also, each island will have ... Many islands will have a different tikanga. So, there's different rules for different environments. 

CRAWFORD: In addition to Māori managing their harvesting of Titi, was that also the case with Sharks in general, White Pointers in particular? Were there certain Māori rules or regulations about the doing and the not doing when it came to Sharks, that you know of? 

METZGER: No, there was not. The Dogfish, they had a season for them.

CRAWFORD: Harvested for the flesh, or the skin, or what?

METZGER: Yep, they harvested the Dogfish, and dried them you know? 

CRAWFORD: Yes. So, the stories of massive drying racks and the whole thing?

METZGER: Yes.

CRAWFORD: There has also been quite a bit of reference, in both Pakeha and Māori circles, about the harvest of White Pointers. If and when a White Pointer is taken - whether it was a carcass that might have washed up, or accidentally gotten tangled up in nets, or in some cases even intentionally taken - perhaps to be removed from a certain area ... Harvested for whatever reason. That there was value in a variety of different ways. Value in the teeth and the jaws. Value in the liver. I’ve heard in a couple of cases now, about the flesh being harvested and consumed. So, it’s a fish with great value, culturally?

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: I'm guessing that White Pointer teeth were as prized then as they are now?

METZGER: My Great-Grandmother, she had a Shark’s tooth - she’d walk around there to cut the Flax to make the baskets with. There is a course fibre, whitau or muka, on the outside of a blade of Flax. You cut through it, and use the fine fibre on the inside of the blade. I never stopped wondering as a kid “I wonder why that doesn’t cut Granny?” [chuckles] It was just on an eel skin lanyard round her neck. And it was just hanging there. I could never understand. There was no reason why it couldn’t cut her, because she’d cut Flax with it. 

CRAWFORD: Did she ever explain where that Shark tooth came from? 

METZGER: No, no. Never ever knew. And I don’t know if one of the rest of the family got it, or what happened to it. But I used a knife. 

CRAWFORD: I've also heard that White Pointer oil has been very important for Māori woodwork and carvings. What do you know about that?

METZGER: Well, the paint was clay and oil. Fish oil. That was the paint they used. All their carvings and that sort of stuff, if they were coloured that’s what it was done with Shark fish oil and an ochre clay that you just dug out of the ground. They put that on it, and it preserved it good-as-gold too. Stopped the weather from getting at it, cracking it and that kind of thing. Also, the Groper had a lot of oil in the head of them, at certain times of the year, as well. That was valuable for doing the same thing as what we did with the hinu from the Titi. You would put your food into kelp, and then fill it right up with oil, and that made it absolutely air-proof and preserved it, you know? 

CRAWFORD: Yes. 

METZGER: Yeah, fish oil was used a lot. And the Shark's liver had terrific amount of oil in them. So, Shark livers - that was something you didn’t waste. Teeth and bones and things like that. Māori still have this law somewhere or other ... and the Department of Conservation are good - if there’s anything, like those Blackfish when they come in get stranded and that ... The people can go and salvage whatever they want out of them. The last while, they’ve been burying the things. The last on the mainland that come in here ... I didn’t go out there, but quite a few from the rūnanga here went out, and they buried them. But when I was young, they didn’t do that. They would moor them, and Sea Lice would eat them, leaving clean bones.

CRAWFORD:  They would what? 

METZGER: Moor them, anchor them. The last one that I knew of that they did, was done with an old dredge-wire off an Oyster boat. Put a lazy splice in the wire, and put it round his tail, and put it round a rock to hold it out there in the tide. And let Sea Lice clean up the bones. It made a beautiful job of cleaning up the bones. You bury the things, and you end up with something that looks like mud - a bit of bone that looks like mud, instead of being a nice white bone. 

CRAWFORD: Ok.

METZGER:  Those Blackfish that strand themselves all the time chasing ... that’s something too. We have scientists taking bits of brain and stuff off of these Blackfish - Porpoises - they call them Whales, but they’re the big common Porpoise. Like just a while ago, there was a whole lot beached themselves down there. And they’ve always done that, because it’s shallow. I’ve watched Porpoises round at Port Craig, and they use the land as a barrier. They come in and they herd their food against the land, and one or two - no more than two - will go in there, have their meal, and then they come out, and then another two go in, and another one. Forever these scientists have been trying to find out why they just run into the shore and beach themselves and they all die. It must be something to do with the brain. It’s not something to do with the brain - I don’t think. They’re herding the fish in to the shore, to have their feed. Like they did round there at Port Craig. It's not a cliff like Port Craig - it’s shallow sandy area that you can anchor in. And the tide goes out, one gets stranded - and they’re clever fish. If one gets stranded, and he's rolling around trying to get off that beach - they’ll swim fast and make a wave to help him. They’re clever fish. I just can’t understand these people. Some of our old Māori people have told them "It’s nothing wrong with their brain. It’s just the terrain that they get caught on. Once one gets caught, they won’t leave it. They’ll try and help it. And they all get caught."

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

METZGER: But anyway. That’s what scientists do, I guess. They haven’t found the answer yet, and they haven’t listened to some of our old people. And like I said, I’ve seen it myself around Port Craig there. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. Just before we move away from the Shark liver oil ... somebody mentioned to me that the facing of a Marae is painted in a particular way. And that fish oil, Shark oil is an important part of that. That there is a - help me with the word here - is it Mana?

METZGER: Ah! Right, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: That if there was a particularly important Marae that is being built - or something that is very, very special ... that people would go out of their way to get the very best Shark oil. In this case, people were saying that they had heard that people would actively seek out White Pointer oil - not just for its properties, not just as a quality oil, but the fact that it came from that particular animal. I don’t know if you’ve heard that, but does it make sense to you?

METZGER: Yeah, that’s correct. Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Yes - it makes sense in terms of you’ve heard that? Or it makes sense in terms of that sounds right. 

METZGER: Oh no, it’s definitely right. Definitely. Also, that particular treatment might be only one carving or figure on the Marae, because that figure represents a certain person. So, you’ll get one here that’s done with clay that come from a certain place, and oil that come from a Shark. And then other ones round about that are just done with - say, Muttonbird oil, for instance. Any old oil. 

CRAWFORD: Ok, good. Let’s talk about the stories you’ve heard from other people about the White Pointers. Realizing that you have lived most of your life close to this region around Bluff, but that you also have very strong and annual affiliation with the Muttonbird Island that you have been to just about every year of your life. In that time, in those places, what other stories do you remember hearing from other people about their observations or encounters with the White Pointers? 

METZGER: Oh, nothing really. 

CRAWFORD: Well, perhaps during the bulk of your life those kinds of encounters just didn’t happen all that often. And that’s an important thing for an ecologist to consider, because things change over time and for different reasons. Like when you were talking about the offshore fishing fleet, back 50 years ago, That offshore fishing fleet isn’t nearly what it was through the ‘70s or ‘80s, right?

METZGER: Oh, no. And that’s made a big impact on the whole fisheries and bird and everything. Probably until I was married - about 1950 - you could bank on every fourth season Muttonbirding - you had a bad season. And it just wasn’t the food there for the birds and the fish. There was a lack of food. And then when those big trawlers, the deep-sea trawlers started up, we never had a bad season. Every year there would be plenty of them, big fat Muttonbirds. It’s only in the last probably decade or a bit more, that we’ve had bad seasons again. And some of these younger ones that never listen to what it used to be like ... You know, once upon a time there was just millions and millions more of all sorts of birds and all sorts of fish. But now it’s just totally different. When the big trawlers caught all those fish, there was only the Muttonbirds there that eat that fish, that food. So, you had years and years and years of big fat, well-fed - and plenty of them - Muttonbirds. And then everything sort of caught up. I guess the big fish that ate all that small stuff was just a certain amount, because of what they took. And the big trawlers and that. So, then you’re back to what it used to be, when I was a kid. Having so many seasons good, and then there’s a bad one. When you struck that, you just got a feed of birds. The catch that you took is regulated on leaving a certain number of birds to breed. And you take what’s over, sort of thing. That’s when I built the houses and did all the improvements that you had on the island. Because you would take a bit of stuff each year, and all that material was there. And then “Hey, we’ve got a bad season, so we’ll do that this year.”

CRAWFORD: You’ve opened up a new door ... well, it’s not new, but it’s an important door. There is going to be year-to-year change, just because that's the way of the world. There’s also going to be year-to-year change, because Humans have an effect, which can sometimes be very important. Whether it's the freezerworks or fish farms or deep-sea trawlers, or whatever. But if I take your thinking about the Muttonbirds and I apply it to the Seals, and then from the Seals up to the White Pointers that feed on the Seals ... You get the same type of effects tumbling through the system.

METZGER: Yes, yes.

CRAWFORD: There have been many stories in which the White Pointer, a top predator, is also a scavenger. But ultimately their nature as predators is related to how much food they have eaten. There have been several people who have said it’s quite possible that in attacks on Humans, the Shark may have known that it was a Human and knowingly attacked, or it may have mistaken the Human for something else as prey. This can be related to the condition of the Shark, in terms of how much it had to feed by the time it got here, and if it was an old or sick Shark. Maybe not doing as well as it used to. It might just take the easiest prey that it can. If it is a Shark that has been through tough times, and has not had a lot of quality feeding - it may make decisions under those periods of stress, that it otherwise would not have made. I wanted to know what your thoughts were about that.

METZGER: Well, if you’re looking for an argument, you’re not going to get one. [laughs] Because what you said is absolutely correct. If you’re hungry, you’re going to find something to eat. And if you’re well-fed, well there’s things that you wouldn’t eat. My Grandmother had a Brother - Bill Bailey, who fished from Stewart Island. Let me see, he married - she come from the Norwegian side. They lived at Stewart Island, the Baileys. Yeah, Uncle Bill - he would tell you stories about different ones - the Johnsons or somebody that had trouble with a Shark, and they caught it to get rid of it because it was a pain. But really, I can’t help you in that because I don’t really know any specific thing that took place with Sharks.

CRAWFORD: Ok. In your period of time here, have you ever heard of any of those Level 4 interactions between White Pointers and Humans? I mean, you’ve got your story about the dinghy and some aggressive behaviour here at the Ocean Beach freezerworks. But elsewhere in this general region, have there been other instances of aggressive attitude, attacks, that you know of?

METZGER: Well, not really. Apart from Tommy Stewart having Sharks that would go at his boat. That sort of the only thing.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Many people I've talked with have said similar things. And it leads to the question of why there aren't more aggressive interactions here between White Pointers and Humans. Especially when you consider the relatively high numbers that aggregate here every year. What are your thoughts on that?

METZGER: Well, I think that Sharks are like a lot of other things that we have out there. We had indicators - if we had a lot of flowers on the Flax, it would indicate it would be a good Oyster season - there would be plenty of Oyster spat to feed Sardines to feed Muttonbirds. That sort of thing, that indicated that we’d have a good season. But that’s not very accurate, not a very good indicator. The real good indicator is if there’s a lot of good kelp there - the kelp that we use to make the kelp bags. If there’s a lot of good kelp there, there’ll be plenty of big fat birds to fill those kelp bags. That is one thing that works. Having been involved with Henrik and Corey and them guys - they tell me there’s no isolation. And there is no isolation. So why shouldn’t it be the same for the Sharks? 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Last thing about the White Pointer before we move on. Some people have thought that perhaps these Sharks are aggregating around this region, and in particular around the Titi Islands, Edwards Island - that the animals are traveling in from great distances, migrating here to mate. What do you think about that?

METZGER: Well, my opinion is that that is absolute rubbish. The reason that they come to Motunui, is the same reason that they came to the back of Ocean Beach. Because there’s a free feed there. Those things that float on the water are feeding them. So, that’s where they go. And we never ever seen a Shark around. They’d be there, but they’d be well and truly dispersed, I would believe. Somehow or another they must interact with one another, because you feed one Shark and the next thing you know there’ll be two and then more there. And it was the same thing ... We were talking about Bill Bailey, he used to tell stories about Sharks doing this to a boat, and doing that to a boat. It was where they were head and gutting, that sort of thing. So, if there’s food there - well, that’s where they’re going to go.

CRAWFORD: You brought in this idea of Sharks and what I would interpret as social behaviour - that they respond to each other. The idea of putting blood or food in the water, and it attracting first one Shark, and then other Sharks. They could all be responding to the same cue - the blood or guts - in the same way. 

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: But there’s also the possibility that these animals actually move around in packs. That they’re much more social that we had thought. Some of the old-timers have seen what they thought were packs of White Pointers, with a couple of large animals in the middle and a couple medium-sized animals in the periphery and that the entire pack was a group. What is your thinking about social behaviour like that? Schooling and pack behaviour in these White Pointers? 

METZGER: Well I don’t know anything about it, but I think that that would happen. Most fish go in schools, so I think that Sharks would go in schools as well. Maybe not all the time, but they would come together at times. Come together at times and certain places. But they wouldn’t be coming to Motunui in schools to breed. That wouldn’t be the reason they came there. They would just do that from time to time, I think. No matter what you take ... You take Deer - a stag will have a harem of hinds with him, and charge or fight any other stag off, that sort of thing. It’ll be the same sort of thing with Sharks, I’m sure. 

CRAWFORD: Have you heard of anybody else aside - completely independent from the Shark cage dive operations - tourists going out to the Titi Islands, and especially Edwards Island - going out there on a boat to feed the White Pointers?

METZGER: No, I haven't heard that.

CRAWFORD: I've heard that this has been happening too - on top of the cage tour dive operations. Some people reckon that the encounters have gone up potentially for a variety of different reasons, that the number of White Pointers has actually gone up, and the Shark-Human interactions are going up because the pure number of boats that are now traveling through that region is going up. And some of those tourist boats are stopping amongst the Titi islands specifically to feed and see a White Pointer. A lot of day-trippers out of Bluff now.

METZGER: That’s right. Well, three of us have got Mātaitai down there in that group. On a fine, calm weekend - you can go up here, and you’ll see 50 boat trailers at each of the two ramps. If you like to ask Mary Leask how many are out there today, she’d pretty well tell you because there would be 99.9% of them will clock in with her as they go out the Harbour. And then sign in when they come back in again - because of safety. So, there’s all those boats going out there. Yeah, I can see what they’re saying. That can be dead right. 

CRAWFORD: Was that a gradual increase in boaters over the years, or did it really take off? 

METZGER: Oh, it really took off. Since they started the quota system, that was so costly, it put the price of fish up that high - that Catholics don’t even eat fish on Friday anymore! [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: We’ll see if that one makes it to the transcript. [both laugh heartily] But, nowadays, you say about 50 boats on each ramp?

METZGER: Yeah, 100 total. 

CRAWFORD: Ten years ago, if you had to guess - roughly how many would you have seen?

METZGER: Ten years ago? Oh, it might have been 6 by then.

CRAWFORD: 6 compared to 100? That’s a pretty dramatic increase in 10 years.

METZGER: Oh, absolutely. Like it's unbelievable the way that it’s increased. Every farmer that’s done well, and that sort of thing - they've got a boat. I’ll never know how someone hasn’t been drowned on the spit, because they go out the harbour and “Oh, we’re going to go to Ruapuke.” If they went straight to Ruapuke, they go straight over the spit - and that spit can come up just like that, with the turning of the tide. And we haven’t had anybody drowned.

4. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - DIRECT EXPERIENCES

CRAWFORD: Did you ever see a White Pointer out in the wild?

METZGER: The Ocean Beach freezingworks - in the old days they didn’t process all of the scraps and stuff into fertilizer. And there was Sharks all along there, with that stuff going into the water. Uncle George always kept a tin of caustic soda under the back seat. Caustic soda is something they used when they made their own soap. It burns you pretty bad - like if you get it on your hands or whatever. You used it for taking off paint or all sorts of things like that. It was a fairly crystally sort of stuff. He only ever used it once. We’d gone down here to sou'west, and we’d caught ... well, I caught thirty good Cod, and that was all I was going to take home. I was rowing back, and he was heading and gutting the fish, and chucking them over the back. And this Shark come along and paid us a good deal of attention. So, he stopped chucking the stuff over the back. But I think the Shark wanted him to give it some more, because it got quite nasty. So, he chucked it one or two more heads and that - to give it something to be busy with, while he opened one up, punctured the tin, wrapped the tin of caustic soda, punctured up, in this Cod and gave it that. It took it right smart. And we never seen that Shark again. That fixed him. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly, how old were you at the time? 

METZGER: Oh, might have been fifteen. 

CRAWFORD: Do you remember what the Shark looked like? Do you remember what kind of Shark it was?

METZGER: Well, no - I didn’t really. Because I was rowing much harder than I usually did. [both laugh heartily] It was Uncle George who was back in the stern of the boat. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. The point is that there were many Sharks in the region near the outflow from the freezerworks. This place was known to be sharky? 

METZGER:  Yes. 

CRAWFORD: And this particular Shark, even though you didn’t really see it closely, was giving your Uncle quite a bit of concern. 

METZGER: Oh, I seen it sort of breaking water. It was right up by the stern of the boat. 

CRAWFORD: You said it was giving you a hard time. Do you remember exactly what it was doing? Do you recall? 

METZGER: It was feeding off the stuff that he was chucking over the side. When it broke water and took some guts there once, my Uncle  decided he wouldn’t do that anymore. I think that Shark ... because he wasn’t getting any more, I think he was thinking "I've got to get some more from that dinghy, even if I've got to eat it." [chuckles] Because it come nudging right up to the dinghy, you know" 

CRAWFORD: Did it actually? Did this Shark bump the boat?

METZGER: Oh, yeah.

CRAWFORD: An upwards bump from below, or did it come up more and hit the gunwale downwards?

METZGER: No, no.

CRAWFORD: Just from down below? 

METZGER: With me rowing, I felt a push forwards - you could say. 

CRAWFORD: And your Uncle was seriously enough concerned that he thought it was time for some drastic action?

METZGER: Yeah. Well, I was rowing as fast as I could. 

CRAWFORD: You were doing your part. Your Uncle did his part. 

METZGER: Once he chucked it over the side, he grabbed the other pair of oars, and we took off a lot faster [chuckles].

CRAWFORD: Ok. This was obviously a very notable incident with a big Shark at Ocean Beach. Have you seen any other White Pointers in the wild, where you knew it was a White Pointer?

METZGER:  Not really. We were moored at Chew Tobacco Bay, down here somewhere. We were moored in there, and I think it was a Blackfish laying dead up on the beach, in a tidal sort of area. When it was getting dark these Sharks come in, and we would talk - I think I might have been at school or somewhere - that you could always tell when a Shark is going to attack because it turns on its side to bite something, to take something. Anyhow, the hull got bumped a few times, and that was Sharks coming into feed off of this - they were ripping it to bits. Archie Johnson said ... the Johnsons were a three-generation family that I knew of from Horseshoe Bay - and Archie said "Come and have a look at this." It was after tea, and we were looking not too far away from the bunk - and these Sharks were coming in, and they didn’t turn over to bite this thing. They just went in, and ripped great chunks off of it, straight in. 

CRAWFORD: When you say 'Blackfish' - what do you mean? 

METZGER: Porpoise.

CRAWFORD: Ok. After the incident when you and your Uncle had in the dinghy, with the Shark at Ocean Beach - did you ever see a White Pointer in the wild after that?

METZGER: When I was out with Uncle Stewart once, a Shark come along and had a good look at us. This was a Shark that would be as long as our boat - it’d be 12 foot long. It just came alongside, and it just lay there - had a look at us. We didn’t stay there looking at it - we actually took off, and rowed straight into the bay ... it was here. 

CRAWFORD: Steep Head. 

METZGER: Just the south side of Steep Head, there’s a little place there that you could launch a dinghy. Yeah. The Shark was just laying there, sort of alongside the dinghy. It wasn’t even swimming. 

CRAWFORD: Really?

METZGER: We were fishing over that side of the boat, and it never took any fish away. We had our lines over one side of the dinghy ... it was Uncle Stewart that seen it. He grabbed me on the arm, he was looking over here and I looked, and there’s this thing laying there. We never hauled our lines up. 

CRAWFORD: No? 

METZGER: We dropped them in the tide, grabbed a pair of oars each, and rowed straight into the rocks, and snuck along the beach. And put the boat away [chuckles].

CRAWFORD: This was a big Shark as well? 

METZGER: It was near enough to the length of the dinghy, as well. 

CRAWFORD: There are two types of big Sharks in these waters, I’ve been told. One is the Basking Shark which can get very big. 

METZGER: Oh, no this wasn’t. I know what a Basking Shark is - I’ve seen them round Fiordland. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. 

METZGER: A different colour, and everything. 

CRAWFORD: So, this was not a Basking Shark. In Southland waters, it was very likely a White Shark.

CRAWFORD: [Discussion about project classification levels for human encounters with White Pointers: Level 1-Observation, Level 2-Swim-By, Level 3-Interest, Level 4-Intense] In the case that you were just talking about, at Ocean Beach with Uncle George - that would have been attitude, that Shark was giving you the what for. 

METZGER: It wanted fed. [chuckles] 

CRAWFORD: It wanted fed. But it was actively coming to the boat. 

METZGER: Oh, yes. It actually gave the dinghy a bit of speed - more speed than I had already given it. 

CRAWFORD: Right. But it wasn’t casual. The whole thing about Level 3 is that it's still casual, there’s no tension to it. But in the first incident you described, there was definitely tension to it. But in this second incident south of Steep Head, was that a Level 2 Swim-by do you figure - there and gone? Or a casual Level 3 kind of interest? 

METZGER: It must have just come along, and seen something there, and stopped. It was just lying there - just a matter of a couple of feet under the water. Just lying alongside us. How long it had been there - I wouldn’t have a clue. We didn’t even know it was there. I don’t even know if it left there or what it did. But we left. 

CRAWFORD: Well Tiny, I think you’re a new risk category. It’s not so much a swim-by, as it’s a park-by.

METZGER: Right. [both laugh]

5. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS

CRAWFORD: When you were growing up, was there anything that the old people would have told you about the role of Sharks in general, or White Pointers in particular - in Māori culture or legend or teachings? That kind of thing? 

METZGER: Well, yes. I sort of figured out that what they were saying was correct with boatbuilding. I believe that if something’s struggling in the water, the Sharks have some way of knowing that something is in strife. If you’re swimming in the water, and you seen a Shark, you would panic and try and get out of there as quick as you can. That was the worst thing you could do, they reckoned. There’d be plenty of fish down there, but why would they take the line and everything? If you caught a fish, and you were heaving it up, and that fish would be upset - it would be fighting to get off that hook. Why would the Sharks come keep taking the fish? It was struggling. So that was something that they said "If there’s a Shark about, face it. Don’t run away, face it. And there’s more a chance of it going on its way, than if you’re struggle to get out of the water." I believe that some vibration or whatever that’s in the water, leads them on to attack. The number of teeth I’ve taken out of wooden rudders ... the propellers go in there. Tommy Shepherd, he had a little double-ended fishing boat that he day-fished in, and he would say “This bloody thing shook the boat!” [both laugh] Two or three times, when I was boat-building, Tommy had a Shark have a go at the boat, you know? So, that’s something that the old people said. Like I was telling Tipene [O’Regan] the other day, "There’s no old people left." [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: Well, I hate to tell you Tiny, but that’s your job now. [both chuckle]

METZGER: Yeah. We were talking about that. I said "You know, so-and-so used to do this. But there’s no old people left." I didn’t realize until Tipene really broke up at what I'd said. Where we used to fish at the back of Ocean Beach there, sometimes you would get onto a school of little Sharks. About that big. And you just couldn’t get away from them. You’d shift down the coast a bit more to get onto a different mark, and the bloomin' things were everywhere. So, there must be a terrible lot of young Sharks in the water at certain times. 

CRAWFORD: At certain times. But this was back in the time when the freezerworks were operating, right?

METZGER: Oh, yes. 

CRAWFORD: So, these smaller Sharks were potentially responding to what was going on, at the time. 

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Back to the old people again. Did the White Pointer ever make it into song or - I wouldn’t call them legends - I don’t know what the proper term in Māori culture is ... lore, creation stories and migration stories - that type of thing. To your knowledge did the Sharks ever make it into those kinds of stories or songs?

METZGER: No. As far as I know, no. You had the Whales, and the Porpoises, and different things like that. But no, I don’t know of them being mentioned. You’re asking the wrong person. 

CRAWFORD: Some people are telling me that some of the Iwi further north are associated with Mako Sharks as a clan. I don’t know if 'clan' is the right word, but if there is an association with story and song and culture - it may very well be geographic. And it may be at a different time. Do different groups of Māori have affiliations or connections like that?

METZGER: Well, down here I don’t know about it. The only thing that I sort of know about fisheries in the North Island was what I was told by Toddy. My Grandfather’s Sister married a maka from the east coast North Island. Just discussing different fishing things - their Whitebait management system was just the opposite to what we have the people here do. Up there, they wouldn’t touch the first shoals of Whitebait that come up the rivers. They'd let them go. Down here, as soon as they're in the river, they’d catch them. Whitebait don’t have a calendar, so the first sign of them being at all gutty, they have a closing ceremony, and that was it. End of the Whitebait season. So, anything that come up the river after that, that was when we were supposed to stop. So, it was the opposite in both ends of the country. But it worked in both places. That’s the only sort of thing I can remember. But no, I can’t remember anything to do with Sharks.

6. effects of cage tour dive operations

CRAWFORD: Roughly when do you remember first hearing about Shark cage dive operations in this region?

METZGER: I didn’t hear about it. I seen it. Because from our island to Motunui, I couldn’t throw a stone there, but about four times - I could do it in about four shots, you know. So, we've watched him there every Muttonbird season, right from when he first started. It was probably a decade away. And he’s been going all that time without a concession. 

CRAWFORD: Last year was the permit, the first permit that DOC [Department of Conservation] issued. And they’re in the middle of a 2-year permit, they’re just starting the second season of the 2-year permit.

METZGER: Right. 

CRAWFORD: When you saw the operation, you’ve seen their boats on station off of Edwards island, off of Motunui? 

METZGER: Oh yes, yes. 

CRAWFORD: When you were there - it was the annual six weeks you were on the island for Muttonbirding?

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: That’s April?

METZGER: April-May, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: So, that’s the end of their season. Their season starts the end of January. Prior to the DOC permit, they may have done things differently or in different locations. But we’re going to focus on the permit, because they can only do the cage diving under the conditions of the permit, specifically at Edwards Island, Motunui. 

METZGER: Yes. Well, Motunui is a long island. 

CRAWFORD: Yes, and it’s also very protected from both east and west winds. 

METZGER: That’s right, yeah. That’s why they’re there. 

CRAWFORD: So, of all of the Titi Islands, it affords the greatest protection. 

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Once they get there, have you ever seen what they do - the actual cage dive operations? First they do this, then they do this? 

METZGER: No. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. They get to the site, either side of the island depending on the wind. They anchor, they put the cage in the water. Under the permit, they’re not allowed to feed - they are only allowed to berley. I realize there are people who think that they feed under the permit, and there are other people who think that feeding is not part of the permit but they feed anyways. But we’re just going to focus on the permit - which say yes to berleying, but no to feeding. 

METZGER: Ok. 

CRAWFORD: The berley has to be particular mince, it has to be very fine, relatively speaking. They are also allowed to have a fish on a line as a bait, to guide the Sharks next to the cage so that the punters have a close experience. 

METZGER: Yeah. And the Department had some people went out there Shark diving - just to check on what he was doing. And they fed. And if he doesn’t feed, he hasn’t got a job. But also, everybody in Bluff knows your business before it even happens, because it’s one of those little places? 

CRAWFORD: Yes. I know some little places like this.

METZGER: So, I’ve been told that a friend of mine has been paid to head and gut there. 

CRAWFORD: A non-Shark cage diving boat?

METZGER: Yes. He’s a Codder. 

CRAWFORD: My understanding is that non-cage diving people do not require a permit to go over to the Titi Islands. Nor do they require a permit to see White Pointers. And as far as I know, there’s nothing that would legally prevent anyone to take a boat over there and feed the White Pointers. 

METZGER: That’s right. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. So, for right now - it is simply the smell associated with the berley mince, and to a certain extent the visual cues from the fish that’s being towed as a bait.

METZGER: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: If the berley is successful, the White Pointers come in, the people go in the cage, they take their pictures, they have their experience, and then at the end of the day everybody’s back on the boat, and then they go home. 

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Do you think that that type of Shark cage diving would have an important and lasting effect on the Sharks that were attracted to the operation? 

METZGER: Well, I don’t think they would get anything to eat from the berley.

CRAWFORD: They would not. Just the smell, the taste.

METZGER: The only thing that would get something from the berley would be small fish.

CRAWFORD: Yes. But would berley-only affect the behaviour of the Sharks? 

METZGER: Yes, yes. Definitely. 

CRAWFORD: How would it affect them? 

METZGER: Because they would really have nothing to eat. They wouldn’t be getting their feed from that thing that floats on the top. 

CRAWFORD: So, do you think that would make them frustrated? 

METZGER: No. I don't think they'd be interested. They wouldn’t go there. If it was just berley they had there, if there wasn’t something there to eat - I don't believe the Sharks would go there. 

CRAWFORD: You don't think they would go there, or they wouldn’t stay there? They might go initially, to see if there was something there?

METZGER: Oh, yeah for a while. But, you know, if they got nothing, for ever and ever, I’d think they’d buzz off. 

CRAWFORD: Would the behave differently after having experienced the cage dive operation, than if they’d never been around one? 

METZGER: I don’t know. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Now what I’m going to do, is ask you some questions where I’m going to create the simplest possible situation - and then I’ll add one thing and then I’ll add one thing. So, it will grow from simple to complex. 

METZGER: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Do you think that the Shark cage dive operations, which according to the permit which use just berley and no food, do you think that they would cause White Pointers to hang around Motunui more that they would if there were no cage tour dive operations? Do you think that the Sharks associate the just smell of food with the place?

METZGER: Well, I don’t know. But I believe that if they were fed in some way, initially, they’ve got into the habit of going there. That’s something they've done, and they’ve been fed for going there. Take away their food, and just have berley - I believe the Sharks wouldn’t go there. 

CRAWFORD: So, if the permit conditions were strictly enforced, and there was absolutely no feeding whatsoever anymore, the Sharks would ultimately not respond?

METZGER: Yes. That’s what I believe, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. It gets at the idea that if the Sharks were making associations - and there are some people who say “Steve, they’re just fish. They’re not going to make associations like that.” And then there are other people who talk about training Eels to come feed out of your hand. Or even goldfish in a bowl - as soon as you walk into the room, they’re already over to the side of the bowl where the feed comes in. Because they have learned. 

METZGER: Same as on the Muttonbird Island. We take the guts down in the morning, and the fish are all waiting there. 

CRAWFORD: Just different kinds of fish. 

METZGER: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Do you think that the White Pointers would associate the smell of food, not the food itself, with the place? To the level that they would hang out more around Edwards Island even when the berley was not there?

METZGER: No. 

CRAWFORD: Do you think that these White Pointers, after having been exposed to the cage tour dive operations, do you think that they would associate the smell of food and boats? Not necessarily that particular cage dive boat, but a boat in general? If somebody from Bluff took a boat over to Edwards Island, when there was no cage diving going on, would those Sharks be more likely to investigate that boat?

METZGER: Well, at the present time, if there’s anything floating they’ll go check it out. Because they’ve learned that those things that float up there is where you get fed - without hunting around for it. At the present time - because they feed them - the Sharks associate all boats. This is why the operation is so dangerous. They’ve hassled boats right into Halfmoon Bay. And that’s why anybody head and gutting coming into the bay there, they were frowned on. Because there’s somewhere out there to do that, so that you’re not bringing the Sharks into the bay. And everybody can go for a swim, or a paddle, or whatever they want to do. And know that there’s not going to be a Shark there. 

CRAWFORD: The White Pointers will come in to the bay on their own, from time to time. It is also possible that the animals could be responding additionally to fish cleaning stations, or fish sheds or fish farms, those types of thing. Your issue, if I understand it correctly, is first and foremost with the feeding. If the animals were not being fed by anyone, your opinion is that many of the problems that people are having with the Sharks, we wouldn’t have those problems. Or at least not as much?

METZGER: Definitely. Definitely. You see, they can’t eat berley. It’s just little particles.

CRAWFORD: Getting back to your point about people other than that cage tour dive operations feeding the White Pointers at Edwards Island. Let’s imagine that another boat adjacent to the cage tour dive operation is putting Cod or Cod frames into the water - something the Sharks can actually feed on. Do you think that those fed Sharks associate the place? And that they will hang around the place where they were fed, more than if they had not been fed there?

METZGER: Oh, absolutely. 

CRAWFORD: If there was a boat - any boat - in proximity to where the food was coming in, do you think that the Sharks would associate the food with the presence of a boat?

METZGER: Absolutely. 

CRAWFORD: Such that if different boats came over, and it was not feeding the Sharks - would the Sharks still be checking out those boats more?

METZGER: Yes, as long as they were getting food at any time at all. They would associate a boat with getting food. The back of Ocean Beach, there was a heap of blood went in there. 

CRAWFORD: We’re talking Ocean Beach here at Bluff again? 

METZGER: Yeah. Down that drain, which was only that size, there were just miles of blood and little particles like berley. 

CRAWFORD: Yes. 

METZGER: But there was also lungs, and other things that the plant didn’t turn into manure in those days. I don’t know what you or anybody else thinks, but my opinion is that if there was not food coming down there - if it was just blood and little particles, we wouldn’t have had Sharks here. 

CRAWFORD: That the food had to be there, not just the smell? 

METZGER: The food was there. 

CRAWFORD: I think you’re just about to help me make an important step here. You told me in our previous interview about an experience that you personally had with your Uncle fishing at Ocean Beach when a Shark harassed your dinghy. You also told me about others, in the same place, who had repeated unfortunate instances with these White Pointers harassing them. Other than at Ocean Beach, did the White Pointers harass other boats back in the day?

METZGER: No. Just here. 

CRAWFORD: Now that you think about it, back in the day, when the freezerworks was in operation - it wasn’t a boat that was delivering the blood and the bits of food that the Sharks were feeding on. It was a trough from the freezerworks. There was nothing for the Sharks to associate with the food. 

METZGER: That's right. 

CRAWFORD: But the White Pointers still harassed boats in that place.

METZGER: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Let’s go back to Edwards Island. Do you think that the Sharks would associate specific boats, that is to say the Shark cage tour dive boats, based on the nature of the hull or something about the motor or the prop or the rudder or something. Do you think that would happen? 

METZGER: No. No, I don’t. Because one of those Sharks had followed a boat into the bay, had a go at both markers on a little boat with twin outboards. 

CRAWFORD: What do you mean by 'followed a boat into the bay'?

METZGER: Well, it’s not too long ago. It was in Bragg's Bay, which is on the north side of Halfmoon Bay. 

CRAWFORD: On the way out, just before Dead Man’s Bay?

METZGER: Yes, yes. Apparently, the Shark had a go at both propellers - hit one and then the other. I think it must have been a fair-sized runabout. 

CRAWFORD: What was the boat doing there? Were they cleaning fish at the time, or anything like that? 

METZGER: No, no. It was just mucking around in there, I don’t think they are even Islanders, from what I heard. It was just someone that had a crib on the island. See the Sharks were following that guy who run his [cage tour dive] business - they would follow his boat in. 

CRAWFORD: How do we know the White Pointers were following his boat? 

METZGER: Well, the Locals had seen it happening. Did nobody over there say anything about that? I got this information second-hand at the Marae, and I don’t actually know who it came from, from Stewart Island. The Shark that was following our boat was no concern - that Shark that Uncle Stewart and I had running alongside up roundabout the back of Green Hills.

CRAWFORD: The second personal encounter you described? 

METZGER: Yeah. That never interfered, it was never any bother. But the one that nudged the dinghy at the back of Ocean Beach, Uncle George was heading and gutting. We'd already lost fish off our line. It was being fed. 

CRAWFORD: And feeding is different from berleying. 

METZGER: Absolutely. 

CRAWFORD: Do you think that White Pointers would associate food with individual boats? 

METZGER: I don’t honestly know. I wouldn’t say this or that. But Sharks are a lot smarter than a lot of people think. Just like a lot of other fish. But I would, just at a guess, I would think that they could associate with a particular boat. 

CRAWFORD: Potentially, depending on how unique the properties of that boat were?

METZGER: Yes. There’s this big difference in boats. You’ve got all sorts of things that a lot of people don’t know anything about. One particular boat that I did a lot of work on, you could hear the electrolysis. If you were sitting in that boat, down in the forecastle, you could hear this buzz. That was what my boss said, "Hear that? That’s electrolysis. That’s the current working its way." What electrolysis endeavours to do ... it’s static electricity, made naturally with movement, movement of tides or something being driven or whatever. What happens in a lot of boats is that static electricity endeavours to make its way back to the negative pole of the battery. So, it’s a static electricity, trying to pick up on a current. So, there’s different fields around different boats. 

CRAWFORD: And that’s what we know of. We don’t even know what other types of magnetic or whatever kinds of signals boats or motors are also generating. White Pointers, like all Sharks, are just loaded with so much sensory apparatus - a whole bunch of different kinds, including electromagnetic fields. But I want to go back to a story you told me previously in the interview ... as a boat builder, you have seen a lot of boats, and you’ve been around in a boating community. You said that on several occasions a Shark had taken a go at the rudder or the prop. Something which is clearly not a Seal or other prey. What do you think is behind that? 

METZGER: I sort of put that as a parallel with what we were taught as little kids - that you if you’re in the water and there’s a Shark there, don’t panic and try to get away from it. Face it. Because Sharks will attack anything that's struggling. And that’s while they’ll snap your Cod off a line as you’re pulling it up, because it’s struggling on that hook. And anything struggling in the water will attract it.  

CRAWFORD: You think the prop is sending out something very similar?

METZGER: I do. That’s what I related that to. And so did Tommy Shepherd as well - the skipper. He reckoned it was something to do with that.

CRAWFORD: Not with the rudder itself, but with the prop? 

METZGER: No, no, no. With the way the propeller was, or some other kind of field, or something like that. But nothing to do with the rudder. 

CRAWFORD: Right. Human beings ... we take a look at it, and go "Clearly that’s not a fish in distress. Clearly that’s not a Seal pup getting out of the water." But who knows how the Sharks are perceiving the world. These Sharks may have a response where this is not a thinking thing - it’s just is a doing thing. It just triggers a response. 

METZGER: That boat of Tommy’s had that happen a number of times. And you've got two dozen other boats out there fishing, and the Shark never comes near them? So, there’s some sort of thing specific. I read up all the stuff I could find about electrolysis, and something I found was a great help was a book I was given when I was just a kid called 'The Boy Electrician.' And blow me down if Michael hadn’t bought that in America.

CRAWFORD: Michael - your Grandson?

METZGER: Yeah. Because I’d lent that other one. But some of the stuff I read in 'The Boy Electrician' helped me to figure out electrolysis. There was one Oysterboat that electrolysis used to eat away the bolts through the rudder gudgeon. Every year we had to replace them. And there was an old guy that used to be the surveyor then ... forgotten his name as well but anyway - Buck, Buchanan, yeah. And I thought “I'll pick old Buck’s brain.” Because I was pissed off with this bloody rudder gudgeon on the Torea. Always used to eat these bolts away. I said "Look, what can I do about this? We've always had a good zinc on here. As far as I'm concerned, everything I know ... the zinc should eat, not something else." And he said "But you’ve got to pick up the field. Try your zinc in different places on the hull to intercept it. You’re putting it in the same place every year. Try somewhere else." Three years later, I got it. Just mucking round. Putting that zinc in different places. And eventually I got on to the direction that current was going. And the bolts were good as gold.

Actually, once I took those bolts out - they were 3/4-inch bolts - I took one out and it was hollow in both ends. I poked something into it, a nail or something, and it just went right in. So, I got the big pressure hose that they used for cleaning the hulls off, give her a blast, and that hole went right through! It was a pipe - not a bolt, with electrolysis. Wiped the core right out of a bolt. 

CRAWFORD: I think there’s a lot more to this. There were some people that came over here from Australia ... I don’t know if you heard about this, but they were testing some electrical Shark deterrent over at the islands.

METZGER: Yeah, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: What did you hear about that?

METZGER: John Hildebrand will tell you all about that. He uses one. But I don’t know if it works.

CRAWFORD: When a White Pointers around, you’d know pretty damn quick if it didn’t. Or if it had the opposite effect!

METZGER: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: I want to come to the last part, which is not just focused the place, or the boat ... Do you think that White Pointers being attracted to the cage tour dives - would they associate Humans in the water, such that if they see a Human in or on the water someplace else, that they would more likely investigate? 

METZGER: That’s interesting. If a Dog is in the water - with anything else - the Shark will take the Dog. And that’s every time. 

CRAWFORD: How do you know that?

METZGER: I’ve seen it. 

CRAWFORD: Where have you seen this?

METZGER: I’ve seen a Dog taken just here - this was in the Harbour. Also, I’ve seen a Shark - I’m saying it was a Shark, but I don’t really know what it was ... When I was a kid, my Father used to kill all the meat for Bluff. There was a butcher shop here, and the abbatoir was just down at Green Point. I used to get half a crown a day, sticking the paunches, and taking the hides and salting them down. That property went right from this side ... right from the harbour here, right over to the Back Beach ...

CRAWFORD: From the harbour over to Ocean Beach? 

METZGER: No. Further up. Up here. 

CRAWFORD: Up by Flat Hill?

METZGER: Yeah. That property goes right through there. And the owner - old Johnson that owned the butcher shop - used to go to the market, and buy stock, and run it on that property. It was rough property. Often there’d be stuff that would go wild that you never managed to bring in to be butchered. 

CRAWFORD: Like what?

METZGER: Oh, Sheep and Cows and Steers and that. And some of those had to be shot. 

CRAWFORD: These were feral animals, out on the property?

METZGER: There would be animals you’d never get them in, you’d never muster them. But the sheep, there used to be quite a number of double-fleecers. You couldn’t have got them in to shear them this year, or put them in the butcher's shop. They just lived there, you know - wild. The mate I was talking about, that I used to build something for, we were brought up together. His Father and my Father were both butchers at Ocean Beach - Dad was later on. But he served his time at the butcher shop initially. He was a solo butcher. He didn’t work on the chain, just doing one part of a sheep - he did the lot. He used to kill all the stuff for Bluff here. And these double-fleecers ... Colin and I used to find a double-fleecer, we’d get uphill from it. And “Right. GO!” And we charged down the hill, get it and ball it over, and tie its feet so that Colin’s Father could shear it out in the open, and carry the wool in. Well, one day, we tried ... this one was a real wild animal. We had a go at it, at least a couple of times, and it took off, and it went over the rocks, and into the tide. And it was struggling away there in the tide. And something took it from underneath. I just assumed that was a Shark that took it. Now that Sheep was trying to swim - it was struggling. A Dog does the Dog paddle - it’s got a certain movement. 

CRAWFORD: A movement that is like struggling. 

METZGER: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Let me get back to that question about whether White Pointers would associate the smell of food with the presence of Humans in the cage. Such that if it saw a Human some other place some other time it would be more likely to associate that Human with food? 

METZGER: I don’t know. No, I wouldn’t. 

Copyright © 2019 Graham Metzger and Steve Crawford