Jack Topi

1. EXPERIENCE IN AOTEAROA/NZ COASTAL ENVIRONMENTS

CRAWFORD: Ok, Jack. You said born in Bluff?

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: 1970?

J. TOPI: 1972.

CRAWFORD: What age do you reckon you started spending a significant time around coastal New Zealand waters?

J. TOPI: Well, I spent a quite a significant chunk of my early childhood around Ruapuke Island. My father fished there, Crayfishing around the island. 

CRAWFORD: And your father is Colin?

J. TOPI: Colin Topi, yeah. 

J. TOPI: Spent quite a lot of his time fishing over there. Mum took me and my younger brother to Ruapuke, and we spent quite a bit of our early childhood - up till around basically when we went to kindergarten, which was around three years old. And then they kind of moved back to Bluff then. 

CRAWFORD: In those early years, when you are on Ruapuke, was it mostly time spent inland on the island? Or would you have spent time around the water, swimming, or in a dinghy or whatever?

J. TOPI: Yep. Swimming, dinghies, all that. Running up and down the beach as you were when you were three, with your Mother watching you. As time progressed, my early teens - and then there was the two younger brothers as well. Warren being the middle one, and Tristan being the youngest one. We spent all of our Christmases over there, with either our Parents or our Grandparents. 

CRAWFORD: Let’s go back for a minute, because you skipped over a bunch of years. At some point there, you were going to become independent to a certain extent from your Parents. When you didn’t necessarily need your Parents or Aunties or Uncles keeping an eye on you. Roughly what age were you allowed to kind of go off on your own - even in a limited way?

J. TOPI: Oh, probably about five I started adventuring around. 

CRAWFORD: So, pretty early. And that’s consistent with people down here.

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: During those early years, would you have spent about 50% of your time here in Bluff, and 50% around Ruapuke?

J. TOPI: Yes, that would be a fair comment. Definitely.

CRAWFORD: When you were here in Bluff, would you have been hanging around the Harbour, or someplace else?

J. TOPI: Mostly the Harbour. Or Argyle Beach - the first beach as you're coming into Bluff Harbour there.

CRAWFORD: Argyle Beach ... at Stirling Point?

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Was that the ocean side, or still within the harbour? 

J. TOPI: Within the harbour. Sort of the first sandy beach you run into from Sterling Point. 

CRAWFORD: Did you have access to a dinghy at that point, or were you just running around? 

J. TOPI: Still just running around the beach at that time. It wasn’t until we were early teens that we were given canoes each for Christmas. And from there, we really started getting into the water activities. 

CRAWFORD: Where in the Harbour would you have gone with these canoes?

J. TOPI: We used to leave Argyle Beach, which is basically just down in front of the family house, and we’d paddle right up to Spencer's Island, sometimes over towards Tiwai. We pretty much explored all the inner waters of Bluff Harbour. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of activities, obviously you were boating - did you do any fishing?

J. TOPI: If we were fishing, it was just mainly for lunch. Like we’d go out and try to catch a Cod for lunch. We'd take a frypan and a bit of butter and flour, go away and have a cook up. And Pāuas - we used to spend a lot of time getting Pāuas as kids. And once again, cooking them up in kelp bags, bits and pieces and Pāua shells. After we had taken the Pāua out, we put the egg in the Pāua shell, put it over the fire, and cooked it in there. Just sort of explored some traditional ways of cooking - even at a really young age. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

J. TOPI: It was me Grandmother said "Stick two kelp bags over the fire instead of one, because the first one will burst." And the first time we ever tried it, it did burst - and all the water put the fire out. So, we started again. [laughs]

CRAWFORD: In those middle years, did you ever do any sailing or rowing? 

J. TOPI: Yes, I was part of the Sea Scouts.

CRAWFORD: What age was that?

J. TOPI: I started with the Sea Scouts at about seven, I think it was. We went to Cubs first. I think the Cubs, you start at five. And then you move to Sea Scouts at about seven. My family was heavily involved in the Sea Scouts at that time, my Parents really supported it. Mum was a Cub leader. The Old Man would help out at the regattas, and be a pickup boat, and bits and pieces. We learned to row under Tiny Metzger - I believe you may have interviewed him. 

CRAWFORD: I did. 

J. TOPI: He really taught us how to row properly. Sailing was with the Scouts again, the Cutters and the Sunbursts. We were taken around to national competitions all around the country - national regattas. The Sea Scout group down here has always been fairly strong in the competitions. The top ten are always given naval recognition, and as far as I know Bluff was the only troop in the country since day dot has always maintained that - they’ve always been in the top ten. The older Scouts who were in there when I first started, they were good - they'd help you push along, teach you bits and pieces, knots and things like that. As you come through the group, then you start teaching the younger ones. And as they get older, a few of the older ones that stay through Scouts become leaders, and end up teaching the younger ones. It was a good time. 

CRAWFORD: I think you said to me earlier, that when you got into Sea Scouts you went all the way to the top level? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, I did. I didn’t complete it, but I hung on as long as I could, before I started work. 

CRAWFORD: What age were you at that point?

J. TOPI: What was I? 18 or 19 - in around there. 

CRAWFORD: Pretty much the entire Sea Scout program, and pretty much for your entire teen years?

J. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: Given the kind of independence that comes when you’re in your early teens, was the split still 50/50 in terms of time on the water around Bluff Harbour - versus time around the water at Ruapuke?

J. TOPI: Ruapuke at Christmas time - we were always there at Christmas break, and some weekends after that. Most of the time in our teens was more in Bluff here, because we were away doing other activities. But every Christmas we would go back, if there wasn’t a regatta, we'd go back to Ruapuke and spend time with our Grandparents.

CRAWFORD: For eight weeks or so?

J. TOPI: It would be the eight weeks, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Was there any difference in activity during your teen years at Ruapuke?

J. TOPI: Not really. Still kicking around the beach, sunbathing, going and getting a feed of Pāuas, catching a Cod. Sometimes we’d take a dinghy out, and try and give it a mast, cut an Oyster sack in half and make a sail. Go from one side of the bay to the other. 

CRAWFORD: Which bay?

J. TOPI: Henrietta Bay. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. When you were fishing, was it handlining?

J. TOPI: Handline, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Did you ever do any rod-and-reel fishing down at the island?

J. TOPI: Not really, no. Always worked out easier ... I still find it today, we take away our charter parties, they use a rod. And it works out quite good for us because there’s only one hook on the rod, and they can only wind it up so fast. So, there’s only so many fish per hour they can pull up. When you’ve got an old-style handline, just a hunk of line with a lead on the bottom and a fish hook off it, you can rip that up really quick, and get it back down. Also, you get the feel for the fish - whether they’re just nibbling it, or they’ve sucked it right in. You can feel a lot of that in the line on the way how you feel it. When you’ve got a rod, it's just bending the end. You really don’t know what's going on, in relation to being able to feel that fish. 

CRAWFORD: Let’s go back to Ruapuke. Did you have any motorized vessels? Any outboards or inboards?

J. TOPI: No. We didn’t until we got into our late teens, and then we ended up with a speedboat in the family.  

CRAWFORD: In terms of activities here in Bluff as a teen while you were going through the Sea Scouts ... still the same general kinds of activities? Or did you expand your range at all? Go out to other beaches in the regions?

J. TOPI: Yeah, as we got older, probably about 15 ... when we joined the Sea Scouts, it's with like-minded people. And this group of friends that I’ve got, although we don’t see much of each other, we can always count on each other. So, you’ve got that real core lot of mates. And when we were together, we’d go camping over at Tiwai. Pitch a tent, take bugger all food with us, get off the rocks and try to catch a fish, and all that sorts of thing. When we went away to regattas and that, we knew each other that well. It was just good friendships, you know? 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

J. TOPI: And you had a lot of good times together. At the end of it, like I say, years down the road - you can always go back and call on them, if you ever needed them. They’re there. And they also brought in some of their knowledge. A couple of them were of traditional families from down here, such as meself. And a few others were like imports, so to speak. But they brought different ideas to the table, when they come. 

CRAWFORD: In your teen years were you still based mostly in Bluff Harbour? Or were you fishing out in Foveaux Strait? 

J. TOPI: No. We were basically in the harbour, and going around the back of the hill at Sou'west Point or Lookout Point, whatever you want to call it. We'd get our Pāuas, and come back up the Harbour again. And that would be about us. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. Let’s go to the end of school then. You were 18-19 years old. Did you go directly into a job? 

J. TOPI: I pretty much did. [chuckles] I made it to 7th form, and then I sort of had enough, and I started wagging. The Old Lady caught me up. I come home that night, and she says to me “You’re fishing with your Father tomorrow. You’re going to school in the morning, you’re handing your books back, and you're finished.” So, I went to school, handed in me books. I remember it was a Thursday. And by Thursday night, I was back at Ruapuke, fishing with me Father. They got me drunk as. [Both laugh] And he gave me the day off the next day, thank God! [laughs] And from there, I fished with the Old Man for about ... probably I’d say 4-5 months. It was blowing one week, and a job come up down at one of the fish factories - the packer container for fish. So, I worked down there, and done that for something to do. 

CRAWFORD: Let’s pause for a second. When you were fishing with your Dad - Colin ... I’ve interviewed him, but give me a general sense of what size vessel were you fishing with him on? 

J. TOPI: Oh, the [Awinga??]. She was a ... they made a class of her that was built for the Chathams. She’s 40-foot long, she must be about 13-foot beam. Traditional old style of boat - [Danish??] style of fishing vessel. 

CRAWFORD: It was geared for a mixed Cray/Cod operation?

J. TOPI: Cray/Cod, yeah. All Potting. She was geared for that. 

CRAWFORD: What region did you and Colin fish?

J. TOPI: Traditionally, around Ruapuke. 

CRAWFORD: Day-fishing? 

J. TOPI: No. Out and away for four days at a time. We fished around Ruapuke when the tides were strong, above 2.7 metres. Beneath 2.7 metres, the tides were weak enough that the floats would stay up, and we could fish further offshore. From there, we spent a lot of our time outside Port Pegasus, the bottom of Stewart Island. Out towards the North Traps. 

CRAWFORD: At that time of year it was specifically for the Cod? 

J. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Give me a sense of the seasonality of the Cray and Cod - when you were working them.

J. TOPI: When I was fishing with the Old Man, we would start Crayfishing around June/July, and carry on right through till about November - that would be the Crayfish run. Once we finished the Crayfish, we would change back over, and start chasing the Blue Cod. 

CRAWFORD: Down at Port Pegasus, if the tides were right?

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Both Traps? All the way around? 

J. TOPI: No, just mainly the North Traps. We didn’t have to go any further, as the fish stocks were there then. 

CRAWFORD: Right. So, that was a fairly short stint for you - about five months fishing with your Dad, you said? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, about five months. 

CRAWFORD: Then what happened? 

J. TOPI: I finished up there, and went to a fish factory. I spent one year in the knifing side. 

CRAWFORD: Here in Bluff? 

J. TOPI: Bluff, yeah. Bluff Fishermen's Co-op. I learned how to clean fish basically - knife them properly. From there, I moved over into the live Crayfish room. We were exporting to Japan originally, just taking the smaller grades of fish up to about a kilo. They were being exported to Japan, and maybe 5% of our total went to China. Now, its 95% into China, and lucky to be 5% in Japan. Just with the change of economies. I spent six years in there.

CRAWFORD: Six years total - working at the fish processing plant? 

J. TOPI: Six years in the Crayfish room.  I think I spent seven years at the Co-op, all up. 

CRAWFORD: During that seven-year period, were you spending any significant time on New Zealand coastal waters? 

J. TOPI: No, no. I was pretty much stuck in that fish factory. The live Crayfish gang, we were working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 6 months of the year. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

J. TOPI: And then in my off-time ... I was always found out the back, asleep in the [Woodwhorl??]. [laughs] So I had no real time off then. That’s pretty much when I separated from this place, around my mates. Sort of drifted away then, because I was just always at work. And they were still, they'd come up home, borrow my flippers and my goggles, and all that. And they’d be away, still diving and doing what they done. 

CRAWFORD: So, after seven years at the plant - you figured that was enough for you?

J. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. I come in the door one day, and I’d done a lot of hours, and I looked at my pay packet ... My little Brother was fishing with me Father - he had been with me Father for a couple years at that stage. He walked in and showed me his pay packet for the week, for four days work. And I showed him mine for seven days, and 110 hours for the week - and there was no comparison. So, I went and gave my notice up at the Co-op, and went back with me Father. Me and my Brother spent 1993 ... we fished together with our Father down at the Traps, Codding.

CRAWFORD: Same type of thing? Same vessel? Same type of fishing grounds?

J. TOPI: Yeah, same vessel, same grounds. We worked together onboard the [Awinga??]. It was pretty much my apprenticeship years in. I learned a lot with the Old Man, with [Tangles??]. How to do your pots correctly, how to lift them, and all that. Then Warren - me little Brother - he went away went to Australia. And me youngest Brother, he started fishing on a Cousin’s boat at the start, and then moved over and come in with me and me Father. 

CRAWFORD: Is that Tristan? 

J. TOPI: That’s Tristan, yeah. We fished together probably five years, I suppose. 

CRAWFORD: So, 1993 to about 1998-ish?

J. TOPI: Something like that.

CRAWFORD: Same fishing pattern for Cray and Cod, throughout?

J. TOPI: Yeah, same. 

CRAWFORD: For that period of time, when you were not fishing - did you still spend time at Ruapuke? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. The Old Man had us across there, doing quite a bit of farming. He had just bought a little farm over there, it was a farm once. We were putting up fences, and bits and pieces like that. Then in our off time, we were down the rocks getting a feed of Pāuas, and mucking around, chasing Swans and Geese, and all sorts of things. 

CRAWFORD: How much time would you have spent at Ruapuke - out of the year?

J. TOPI: In the early days, when I started fishing with the Old Man ... I would say I spent four months a year over there. Basically, staying there. 

CRAWFORD: And when you were fishing, you were based out of Bluff?

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: When you were on the island, did you do any fishing?

J. TOPI: I was fishing. Me and the Old Man, we’d go across, do the trip. He’d come home, and I would stay over there. And then he’d come back, pick me up - we'd carry on fishing. This was during the Crayfish season. He’d come home, and I'd stay there. I'd just send back for supplies. That’s pretty much the way that he done it as well. He and another Brother - they’d done the same. Get over there, and my Grandfather would come over, and get a load, and get the supplies, then he’d go back and stay there. 

CRAWFORD: So, you were still spending a big chunk of time on Ruapuke then?

J. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. Feels like my homeland. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. So, that’s you, your Dad, your Brother ... How long did that run for? 

J. TOPI: Must have been about four or five years. The first season, when Ratbag was still with us, we ended up spending a couple of months, I think it was May and June, up along the West Coast. Fishing originally between ... where were we? We were Thompson's to - I believe [Chows??]. 

CRAWFORD: We’re talking Fiordland now? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, Fiordland.

CRAWFORD: This was Crayfishing, with your Dad and Brother? 

J. TOPI: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: North of Doubtful?

J. TOPI: Yeah. Thompson's Sound up to ...  I think we finished at Caswell the first year. And the next year, we moved from Charles to George - going down that strip. 

CRAWFORD: What was the season for that work? 

J. TOPI: That’s during the Crayfish season. We’d normally disappear - we’d be away for the month of June, anyway. Sometimes a little bit before, sometimes a little bit into July. And then we’d stay up there until the Crayfish started at Ruapuke - which would be August. We Crayfished up and down there, probably for ... on and off, maybe for ten years or so. Something like that, I guess.

CRAWFORD: When would that take us to? 2005?

J. TOPI: I suppose it would be, yeah. Up to 2005. 

CRAWFORD: That’s an intensive Crayfish operation. Specifically Craypots?

J. TOPI: Craypots, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: And when the run was on at Ruapuke, you'd Crayfish there as well?

J. TOPI: Yeah. We actually had two sets of gear. We'd leave one set of gear up there - we'd store in the Sounds. And we’d have another set of gear in Bluff, and we’d take them over to Ruapuke and start Crayfishing there.

CRAWFORD: Was there still any Codpotting going on around the Traps or Pegasus or anyplace? 

J. TOPI: No, not that time of year. We were just solely concentrating on the Crayfish. 

CRAWFORD: No, I meant during those years - during that decade? 

J. TOPI: Oh - yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: So, when you weren’t fishing Fiordland or Ruapuke Crays ...

J. TOPI: We'd be Codding. 

CRAWFORD: South end of the Island, Pegasus and the Traps?

J. TOPI: And around the Cape. All around Stewart Island, basically. The whole thing for Cod. More weather-dependent. If it was blowing an easterly, then we’d hug the west side. And if it was screaming westerly, we’d come and do the east side. Back then, the numbers were pretty good. You could make a pay just about anywhere. But now you have to mainly concentrate out in these farther areas, to get the number that you need. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. If I was counting right, that takes us all the way to 2005?

J. TOPI: I think it might be. Something like that. 

CRAWFORD: What happens then? 

J. TOPI: After that, the Old Man pretty much laid down and retired. So, I sort of took the boat. 

CRAWFORD: Which boat? 

J. TOPI: His boat - the [Awinga III??]. I was pretty much given the reins. The only thing I was really doing was Codding with her, over a pretty much spread-out area. We’d come from Milford pretty much right the way down around Stewart Island, and down to where the [Lion??] fished - which is [Slope Point??]. We’d fish that all year round.

CRAWFORD: That was full-time Codding? Not Crayfishing anymore?

J. TOPI: Yeah, no Crayfishing. He used to lease it out, and he’d get his money that way. And he just left us to catch the Cod. He'd find a lot more Cod for us, so we'd just hammer it all year round. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. In terms of seasonality, was it Codding full year - or did you have an off-season?

J. TOPI: Yeah, it was full year. Just keep going, when the weather lets you. 

CRAWFORD: How long did that run for? 

J. TOPI: We did that for probably five or six years - somewhere around there. And then after that, he wanted his boat back. [laughs] So, I just went to Aussie and brought my boat - this one, the Awesome.

CRAWFORD: That was about 2010, when you went to Australia? 

J. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Did you spend any time fishing in Australia? 

J. TOPI: No, not fishing - just looking around. Me and Tristan - the youngest Brother - we flew across, and had a look for a boat. We spent a month over there, cruising around all of Western Australia. And we got a good look around over there at different types of boats. Everywhere we went, we were stopped ... for some reason, everybody knew that we were coming. Word of mouth of the Aussies, obviously. And when we stopped somewhere, there was always a big crowd of fishermen standing around, asking us about our quota system and how it worked - as they were going through some difficult times in Aussie at that time, with their management system. So, they were really quizzing us, because they were quite interested in how the New Zealand quota system had actually increased. Well, the fish stocks and the Crayfish stocks have bounced back quite some. I remember when I first started with the Old Man - at that time of year, if we were doing half a fish per pot we were doing alright. 

CRAWFORD: Fiordland Crayfishing?

J. TOPI: Yeah. And then when you get to Ruapuke, they come in a big run. You’ll get nothing today, and then tomorrow you’ll be sitting on a tonne. And the next day nothing, and another day, another tonne. That’s pretty much how Ruapuke went. It had always been like that, as long as I knew. I remember my Grandfather telling me that there’s an acre of water behind the back of Ruapuke, where they’ve pulled 90 tonne of tails off. Now, 90 tonne of tails is 270 tonne of green Crayfish coming out of the water. Where our fish today is all green, and there’s only 1000 tonnes in this entire area. Shows you how good the stocks were when he first started, to what they were when I first started - which was half a fish a pot. 

CRAWFORD: You reckon back in the day, those were sustainable harvests? 

J. TOPI: When my Grandfather was doing it?

CRAWFORD: Yeah.

J. TOPI: It wasn’t - because it depleted the place. It was overfished. 

CRAWFORD: So, the population was declining? Those were artificially high numbers?

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: When the quota system came in, did people reckon that they were helpful in restoring sustainability? 

J. TOPI: Yes. Definitely, definitely. 

CRAWFORD: Specifically, for the Crays? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, for the Crays. 

CRAWFORD: Other species as well? 

J. TOPI: The Blue Cod is pretty much following the way that the Crayfish went. Everyone’s struggling now to put a [float??] in their freezer. A few years ago, me and a mate had called a meeting with everyone. We managed to get a steering committee going to address the issues. It's still going today. We’ve reduced our quota by 20% so far. I believe we need to knock another 10% out, to help it. Maybe even another 20% to give the fish time. 

CRAWFORD: It's a work in progress - with the Blue Cod management?

J. TOPI: Yes. Yes, it is. Still in its early days. But so was the Crayfishing - and it bounced it back. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. So, you were over in Australia. What kind of boat were you and your Brother looking for? Or did you know? 

J. TOPI: There was one at Bluff called the [Abrollis??]. I was after something like that. A fast Australian one, around 50-foot. That was what I was away to target, because there’s one here in Bluff, and I knew how good she was on the sea and everything. I thought "Yep, that's me." We got across there, and this is the first one we ran into and took for a ride. And it was sold after that. 

CRAWFORD: This boat? The Awesome? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, the Awesome. 

CRAWFORD: What was your business model for this boat? 

J. TOPI: At that time, I’d met a Department of Conservation fellow who was quite high up. And he says to me that they used to have a boat that run out of Bluff - down to the Aucklands and the outer islands. They used to go do a lot of projects with it, and she sort of dropped out of the loop, and they didn’t have a boat that could really supply - other than the Navy - to carry lots of gear down there. So, I sort of pictured this boat being able to do it. I thought "Well, here’s an opportunity. Let's go for it." When I seen the boat, I could see that you could lay her up, and put 12 bunks on it, and put the big fuel tanks in, get a big motor. So, we’d be able to do it easy. Put the extra water in, and all that. Bring her up to offshore survey. She could do that with all the part requirements and everything that the [USO Code??] required. She gave all the ticks on that. So, I thought “Alright, this is us. Let’s go back and make them an offer.” So, we did. Went over, picked her up, and brought her home. We actually steamed her all the way from Perth to Bluff. We done it ourselves. 

CRAWFORD: When was that? 

J. TOPI: It was in 2010, I think it was. We brought her home. And I fished her for about nine months, once I got her home. 

CRAWFORD: What kind of fishing? 

J. TOPI: We just Blue Codded.

CRAWFORD: Where?

J. TOPI: Mainly down eastward, down along behind the back of Ruapuke, back down round Pegasus and that. I did do the odd trip up to Presi and that.   

CRAWFORD:  Where? Oh Preservation ...

J. TOPI: Yeah, Preservation Inlet. 

CRAWFORD: Southern Fiordland. 

J. TOPI: Yeah, southern Fiordland, and down along the shore. I don’t spend a lot of time down there. I can’t catch enough there. There’s some areas where some people do well, and some areas where they don’t. That piece of coast along there, and from Codfish down to the top of the [Southern] Muttonbird Islands there, I don’t do very well. So, I don’t spend much time there. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. That was about nine months fishing, you reckon? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, it was about nine months. And then we pulled the boat out of water, and that’s when I gave her the big birthday. We put all the stuff that I wanted in it. She was out of water for ... must have been a good six months. We put her back in, and she's been working for me ever since.

CRAWFORD: That would be about 2011 to the present?

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: What’s the split, in terms of the activities - fishing versus charter? 

J. TOPI: When we first started, she was still pretty much in her original state - it was a real basic boat.  I took some mates away for a day, we went out and got a feed of Oysters, chased the Cod, and shot round a part of Stewart Island there, they jumped over the side and got a feed of Pāuas. Then we cruised up the inlet, Paterson Inlet. And we went out towards the [Centre Islands??], stopped up there and had a yak with some mates up there. Then we come inside, and had a big cook-up. The day sort of disappeared, and we carried on home. When I got home, I said “What’d you think about that, boys?” and they went “Jeez, that was choice.” I went “Would it be alright for a charter?” I’d never done much chartering. And they said "Yeah, yeah - give it a go." So, I run an ad in the Southland Times, and one in the Otago Daily Times or whatever is up there. And I got a ring from some blokes out of Dunedin, and one crowd from down here. They come out with us, and we put on what I thought would be a normal day. And that was pretty much how it rolled. We ended up just mucking around, doing the odd charter here and there. It all just went by word of mouth. I only put the two ads in, and that was it. I figured if it’s going to work, it’s going to work - if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. From there ... the first year was like maybe 100 people across the deck of this boat, and second year I know was 240. The third year was like 550, the following year was 720. And last year if the El Niño wasn’t here, we would have clocked well over 1,000 people across me deck, for the short time that we do the chartering. 

CRAWFORD: But with El Nino? 

J. TOPI: It didn’t happen, because of the weather. Yeah, a lot of cancellations, a lot of disappointed people. In and amongst all that time, while we’re doing that, I’m also trying to run Muttonbirders during the Muttonbird season, down to the Titi Islands so they can get theirs. That starts on the 15th of March and carries on right through into June. 

CRAWFORD: Is that both Northern and Southern Titi Islands?

J. TOPI: Yeah, the whole lot of them, we've got service. We do a little bit of work for the Department of Conservation to Codfish Island - they have a resupply once a year for the [Kaka project??]. We take stuff across the way for that. We also do a bit of freighting to Preservation Inlet or Kisby Lodge. And on the odd occasion, we get rung up by someone like [Peter Tally??] who might have someone who’s [crook??] on a vessel, or they need to get off. Or go way down south, and pick them up and bring them home. Done one project so far for Te Papa as well, down to the Snares, when we dropped some [colum??] that off. 

CRAWFORD: Was it a research project?

J. TOPI: It was a research project, yeah. I think it was more the numbers of Muttonbirds that are off that island, because that island is not harvested as such. So, it’s sort of a controlled area, where it’s only the birds themselves. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

J. TOPI: And then on the odd occasion, we get called out to go to the Aucklands as well, to do drop-offs and pick-ups for the Seal colonies down there. The Hookers and all that, they keep an eye of them.

CRAWFORD: Through the last five years then, what percentage of the year are you busy doing one form charter or another? 

J. TOPI: If we were to sum it up, and put it into a year - I would say that for two and a half months of the year it would be solid chartering. 

CRAWFORD: What season would that mostly take place in? 

J. TOPI: From the 1st of March to the 31st of August. 

CRAWFORD: And during that time, specifically when you were charter fishing recreationally, there was an increase proportionally in number of trips over the years? 

J. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: March to August? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, more at the start - because everybody wants the taste of that Oyster at the start of the season. And then getting into August, they want that final taste of Oyster as well. So, that’s our two peak times in it. 

CRAWFORD: And what’s the proportion of Oystering versus Codding on those trips? 

J. TOPI: It’s both. We do both in the one day, and out of that day it’ll take two hours to get the Oysters, and then they spend about two hours or three hours handlining for Cod. 

CRAWFORD: Typically what regions?

J. TOPI: The Oysters - the bulk of it is done out in the middle of the Foveaux Straits here. And from there, depending on the weather, we’ll drop down into [North Islands??], we may come across to Ruapuke Island, or sometimes we might head off up towards the Saddle, around there.

CRAWFORD: Northwest Stewart Island, End of the Head? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. I think that pretty much brings us up to present then?

J. TOPI: Yeah, it does. 

2. EXPOSURE TO MĀORI/LOCAL/SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS 

CRAWFORD: To what extent has Māori culture and knowledge contributed to your knowledge of the marine ecosystem generally?

J. TOPI: Māori would be a Medium. Somewhere around there.

CRAWFORD: Ok. 

J. TOPI: You’re talking tradition here, eh? My Father teaching me, and all that?  We’ll go High there then. High. 

CRAWFORD: When people say High, I ask them to explain that a bit.

J. TOPI: Because everything that I’ve been taught to date, to observe and everything, has actually come down from my Father and my Grandfather. Like the birds flying off the water. I didn’t know nothing about it - it was my Father’s teaching, and my Grandfather’s teaching. How to fish, where to fish. It has all come down through them.

CRAWFORD: Was it explicitly coming from Māori culture and the Māori knowledge system - did they talk about that way? 

J. TOPI: More just them. 

CRAWFORD: Could still very much be Māori culture and knowledge - just at a personal, family or whānau level. I don’t think I would do this in hardly any other case, but when I interviewed your Dad Colin, and we came to the same question ...

J. TOPI: What’d he say? 

CRAWFORD: He said they were brought up Pakeha. There was a big disconnect.

J. TOPI: Yes, there was. Definitely. And that’s why I say about Māori - it was just them who taught us how to do that. The customary side wasn’t there. We never really had the customary.  Like I say, I’m just starting learn this stuff now that I’m getting along in life. More because Ngāi Tahu has come about, and we work with them to get certain things done. 

CRAWFORD: Yes. You were talking about the resources coming back down to the flax roots. And I'm sensitive to that.

J. TOPI: If you go up north, I believe they would be really High up there. They get it all cultured into them in certain areas. 

CRAWFORD: And even they have their challenges. But for the purpose of this question - the input from traditional Māori culture and knowledge? 

J. TOPI: Low. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Same thing for Science. How much do you reckon Science has influenced your thinking about the marine ecosystem in general? 

J. TOPI: That would be a Medium. Because I try to take onboard as much as I can. You never know when that little bit you’ve taken up might help.

CRAWFORD: Yes. But it’s not just that. Especially for people who charter. I mean, the people who are chartering - they’re just full of questions. 

J. TOPI: They are, they are. 

CRAWFORD: And they want to hear what you know about things. How does this work? Or what’s that pattern? One way or another, there’s a natural tendency for the charter operator to want to help them understand. 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

3. WHITE POINTER DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE

CRAWFORD: What was your first recollection of hearing about or seeing a White Pointer?

J. TOPI: More hearing about. I remember when we were kids, our Father took the family, across to Ruapuke Island. We went into a bay called Caroline Bay. I remember being ashore, we went across and had a picnic, and we all rode ashore, climbed up on the bank and the Old Man got a barbecue going. I remember him saying "There used to be to be a White Pointer cruise through here. It was here every year.” And he called it - it was called Caroline Jack. It used to cruise around the bay. That was pretty much the first time I ever really heard of a White Pointer. A few years after that, we were still kids, and the Old Man had caught two accidentally on a longline. They rolled up, they’d obviously grabbed a hook and they'd spun, and the rest of the hooks hooked into them. 

CRAWFORD: You heard about those fish, or you saw those fish? 

J. TOPI: I saw those fish. They towed them into Bluff. I remember when I was a kid there was ... down where he's actually berthed now, on the old island town wharf down here. I remember being across the other side watching them, and there was about 40 or 50 blokes pulling on the end of a rope - pulling this White Pointer up onto the wharf. I remember they were dead. That’s about all I can remember. I remember them taking the teeth out. And then the next day, the Old Man had taken them back out and dumped them - what was left. Back then, I suppose conservation wasn’t really there. Today we don’t do that. 

CRAWFORD: How old were you? 

J. TOPI: Real young ...

CRAWFORD: Around 10? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, 10 or 12. Somewhere around there. A good 30 years ago, anyway. 

CRAWFORD: You don’t have any recollection of them cutting guts or anything like that?

J. TOPI: No, no I don’t. I just remember the teeth coming out, and they wanted me to sit on it. 

CRAWFORD: And those two - were those the first White Pointers you had ever seen?

J. TOPI: That I’d seen, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Have you seen White Pointers in the wild? 

J. TOPI: Yes, I have.

CRAWFORD: Multiple? 

J. TOPI: Yes, I’ve seen multiples.

CRAWFORD: What was the first White Pointer in the wild that you saw? 

J. TOPI: The first one that I really seen ... well, I really didn’t see it, the Old Man seen it more than I did. We were Crayfishing out off George Sound - just offshore, there’s a rock called House Roof Rock. We come out of here, we anchored up, and we pushed from George Sound down to Charles Sound. We were at the top end, working our way south. We come out, and there's a rock right about here - it’s called Houseroof Rock, it looks like a house from a distance. We had finished doing the inside gear, and there’s a patch runs out - it’s called the Cabbage Patch. We were just off there. We’d lifted a pot ...

CRAWFORD: Craypot?

J. TOPI: Yeah, a Craypot. We’d set it, and all I heard was the Old Man “Whoa! Look at that!” He as looking back in towards Houseroof Rock, and by the time I Iifted my head up and looked over to Houseroof Rock - I just seen the splash. We would have been about 400 metres away from this rock. We were a wee way away from it, and then all of a sudden, we seen this massive big splash. All I seen was a big splash - and whatever it was I could see, was white-ish. I thought “Oh, there’s a Whale there.” It just breached or something like that. And I turned and said “Was that a Whale?” And he goes “No. I know that smile. That was a White.“ And I went “Ahh.” And that was the first time I’d really seen one at sea.  

CRAWFORD: Roughly how far away from the rock was the splash?

J. TOPI: At best guess, I’d say it would have been maybe 50 to 100 metres off the rock. 

CRAWFORD: It was close. 

J. TOPI: It was in close. 

 CRAWFORD: What’s the slope or the bathymetry in that region? Is it shallow, or is it deep? 

J. TOPI: There, it would be just on the edge of a ledge, I would say. So, the Seal had obviously just come off the rock or whatever it was chasing. 

CRAWFORD: You figured it was a Seal that the Shark was breaching on? 

J. TOPI: I figured it would have been a Seal, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: At the time, were there a lot of Seals around that rock?

J. TOPI: A lot of Seals around that rock, and around that area in general. Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Did you see any blood on the water or anything? 

J. TOPI: I didn’t. We were too far away to see any of that. 

CS: Did you go back? Or was it just in passing? 

J. TOPI: No, we didn’t. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly when was this? 

J. TOPI: Well that was in the winter months. We were sort of betting around the June mark again, somewhere around there. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. That’s the first, and you saw the splash - but you’re Dad saw the Shark. And he said he saw the smile - he knew what he saw. So, let’s count that as yes - that was the first White Pointer alive that you saw at sea.

J. TOPI: Interesting thing was - a couple years later I was talking to one of the locals up fishing that area.

CRAWFORD: George Sound?

J. TOPI: Yeah. And one of the crew had been talking to a pilot of a fixed-wing plane ... whatever they call those floating ones. And they had flown into that area at the top of George Sound. He said they had lifted off the water, and he was flying around inside the Sound trying to get enough height to get over top of the mountains. And when he looked down, he seen this massive White Pointer paddling around right up near the top of it. Which makes me wonder, because the size of that splash was something big. I thought it was a Whale. So, it was a reasonable-sized Shark. And then it was only like a year or two years later, we found out that this bloke had seen this thing from the plane. He said it was one of the biggest fish he had ever seen.

CRAWFORD: If we wanted to check in with people who might have observations of where these animals are, it comes back to the pilots and talking to them. 

J. TOPI: It does, yep. That area’s probably a little trickier to see, because of the amount of freshwater and tannin that comes in. It’s real hard to see into, because of the tannin, and where the fresh runs over top of the salt, it’s really hard to see into the water. That’s why you get a lot of black coral in these areas, up in the shallow waters because of the light restriction. 

CRAWFORD: You said it was a local, maybe an old-timer who told you that story? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: About what the pilot had seen? Because you didn’t talk to the pilot himself, right?

J. TOPI: No, no, no. 

CRAWFORD: When you talked to the locals, especially the old-timers in Fiordland - did they ever talk about White Pointers, in terms of being in the sounds versus offshore out of the sounds? 

J. TOPI: No, I never really heard anything about that. 

CRAWFORD: Did you get the impression from the old-timers that seeing a White Pointer at all was a relatively rare event up there? 

J. TOPI: Well, he didn’t really elaborate too much. He just said “Oh well, funny that. Because the pilot had seen this massive White Pointer.” 

CRAWFORD: Do you ever remember hearing any stories from anybody else about White Pointers in Fiordland?

J. TOPI: No, I don’t. To be honest.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s move to the second White Pointer that you saw. Where and when? 

J. TOPI: I’ve seen quite a few of them around this area here, where they’re actually doing the Shark cage diving. It’s part of our charters - we depart from Bluff and do our Oyster tows in the Strait, and then from there we drop down among the Islands here, because most times the wind’s easterly - we come down and hide in here.

CRAWFORD: This is all within the last five years or so?

J. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Did you see any White Pointers there before the last five years on the Awesome?

J. TOPI: Not really. We were pretty much offshore. 

CRAWFORD: Let's get back to Ruapuke - back to what the old-timers said. This would include your Dad, but it would also include everybody else. Did you get the sense from the old-timers that the Northern Titi Islands were always a place where the White Pointers were?

J. TOPI: Yes, yes. I’ve always had that impression that that’s the area for them. Just years ago, we lost a chunk of our family out off these islands here. I've worked with the police dive squad since, and they didn’t realize till the last event that we had ... We actually sat down, me and Bruce the chief diver, and he just finally, dropped that it was my family that we lost out off there. And then he started telling me about it - like they were going down the line, down to the boat to get the family members out. And that there were Whites swimming around there then. That was coming up ten years ago.

CRAWFORD: What time of year was that? 

J. TOPI: May the 13th, I think they come home. 

CRAWFORD: Your family had been Muttonbirding? 

J. TOPI: It was Muttonbirding, yeah, The family was returning home from the island. By the time the divers got there, Bruce told me that there was this big Shark just cruising around, just put the living fear of God into them as well. I said "Did they look aggressive or anything to them," and he said "Nah. It was just cruising around being nosy." But he said "When you got that big thing over top of your shoulder, and you’ve got a job to do - it gets pretty eerie." 

CRAWFORD: And he’s chief police diver, Bruce? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: What’s his last name? 

J. TOPI: I don’t even know his last name. They call him Bad. 

CRAWFORD: Is he a Bluffy?

J. TOPI: No, no. He’s Wellington. Police dive squad. 

CRAWFORD: That’s an important observation, and I had not heard that story. I had heard about the tragedy with your family, and my condolences for that. 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: I hadn’t heard anybody tell me the story about the recovery dive team, and their observation. And that predates the Shark cage tour dive operations. 

J. TOPI: It does, yes. 

CRAWFORD: I’d have to check the records - it may or may not predate the DOC [Department of Conservation] work there. Ok. Thank you for sharing that. It’s an important lead. Let’s go back to the old-timers on Ruapuke. This is an ancient habitation, in terms of Māori culture.

J. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: But then you get the Sealers, then you get the Whalers, then you get the whole kind of Bluff industrial fishing fleet happening. In terms of the longtime knowledge that the Ruapuke or Bluff old-timers would have shared about White Pointers in this general Foveaux Strait region - what places were historically associated with White Pointers? Were you ever told by the old-timers?

J. TOPI: Not really, no. We were never really told anything, other than ... the earliest one that I know of was Caroline Jack, 

CRAWFORD: And that was right at Ruapuke. 

J. TOPI: And Seal Rocks was also a notorious place, as well. 

CRAWFORD: East of Ruapuke?

J. TOPI: East of Ruapuke, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. There are a couple of other places I just wanted to get your comment on. In terms of Bluff Harbour itself, do you remember anybody talking about White Pointers in the Harbour? 

J. TOPI: Yep, yeah. I do remember - just probably once every four or five years, you’ll hear that there has been a sighting of a Shark in the Harbour. I don’t doubt that they come up here to breed.

CRAWFORD: 'Shark' as in White Pointer? 

J. TOPI: As in White Pointer, yeah. I know there’s a lot of Greyboys and that in the Harbour, at certain times of the year. They always go in shallow. 

CRAWFORD: A case of mistaken identity? 

J. TOPI: Could be.

CRAWFORD: Any confirmed instances of White Pointers in the harbour? 

J. TOPI: Nah, none that I know of. Just that I’ve heard of - warnings that there could be a White in the Harbour. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Getting back to the idea of saltwater and freshwater - and you brought it up actually, when you described George Sound, I think it was?

J. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. The fresh at the top. 

CRAWFORD: And that would also be the case at regular estuaries. Did you ever hear anything from the old-timers about White Pointers either avoiding or being attracted to estuaries? 

J. TOPI: No, no. I’ve never heard anything like that. But I believe so - as I’ve grown older - that there are some fish that go up there and they try and wash the leeches off. Things like that. But I don’t know if that’s right or wrong. 

CRAWFORD: What about the beaches? Oreti Beach, Te Waewae? 

J. TOPI: Yep. I spent a bit of time there. I left the Old Man a couple of times throughout me fishing career, went away and worked on a Shark boat. I spent two seasons onboard a vessel called the [Kumia II??]. She was an Oyster boat. And then in the off-season she’d go hunting for Greyboys.

CRAWFORD: Fishing out of Bluff or Riverton? 

J. TOPI: Fishing out of Bluff here. We fished right the way up to Dusky Sound, right round the bottom of Cape. 

CRAWFORD: This was setnetting? 

J. TOPI: Setnetting, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Did that Greyboy operation also fish Stewart Island? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, round Stewart island. Greyboys we mainly targeted, Rig we went for as well. Back in the days there were no closures of anything, so we were bouncing along the beach outside of Oreti and along here as well - looking for the Rig. We spent a lot of time off Windsor Point, getting up towards Presi. 

CRAWFORD: Preservation? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, Preservation Inlet. Spent a lot of time down around the Cape here. 

CRAWFORD: And in all of that time setnetting for Shark ...

J. TOPI: Never caught a White Pointer. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever heard about White Pointers getting caught up in setnets?

J. TOPI: Not really. Not at that time. I don't know, maybe we were too deep, I believe perhaps. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever hear about White Pointers in either of these bays, or off the point? 

J. TOPI: No, I never did. But I always thought they must be in there, because there are other Sharks in there. So, if other Sharks are in there feeding on something, then they’ve got to be lurking somewhere. 

CRAWFORD: As we come into Foveaux Strait from the west - what about the reefs or the islands? Any of those places out in the middle of Foveaux Strait? 

J. TOPI: I mean, sort of. Riki [Topi], for some reason ... I think it’s the bait that he uses. He uses Salmon guts - very oily and it gets on the lines. We used it for a wee while.

CRAWFORD: You mean on your recreational charter? 

J. TOPI: On our Cod boat, we were Codding. It was screaming for a couple of weeks, so we went and just mucked around inside here.

CRAWFORD: 'Here' being pretty much the east side of Stewart Island from the Northern Titis down to East Cape? 

J. TOPI: Yep. We mucked around here for a couple of week. We come up, and put our fish onto the [Saneracki??] which supplies the Salmon farmers up here, back and forth to Bluff each day. Instead of us coming across in the bad weather, we’d just put our fish on board them, and they’d send them home. They’d bring back our supplies, and we’d carry on. 

CRAWFORD: Right. 

J. TOPI: We had set a couple of Codpots just outside the entrance of Paterson Inlet. We had none Codpots, and when we come back we were down to seven. They were just nice clean chomp marks, when we found one set of floats. So, the Whites had come along, because we’d been using the Salmon guts - it had attracted them in. Was obviously on the line, and they come and they nibbled it. 

CRAWFORD: Do you have any indication that White Pointers went into Paterson Inlet? 

J. TOPI: Well, yeah. I’ve heard they go up there quite a bit.

CRAWFORD: Heard in recent times, or older times?

J. TOPI: Recent times, yeah. Just been recent times.

CRAWFORD: Any reason why the animals are going in? 

J. TOPI: No. I wouldn’t have a clue. Probably the same reason if they come up here [Bluff Harbour], I would imagine. I don’t really know.

CRAWFORD: What do you know about the food supply, first in terms of Seals - in Paterson Inlet?

J. TOPI: I’ve never really taken much notice. There is a few, hanging around the back here. 

CRAWFORD: What about the Salmon farm? Have you heard of any interaction with that? 

J. TOPI: Well, I’ve never really heard of anything attacking the cages other than the Seals. Mind you, they do say the odd Shark gets in, but they never say what type of Shark. I think it’s more Sevengillers and things like that, perhaps. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. In terms of White Pointers among the northern Titi Islands - why do you reckon they’re there? 

J. TOPI: Definitely for the food, yeah. For the Seals, I believe that. Same as Ruapuke - they’re there for the food, because there’s a big Seal population over here too. 

CRAWFORD: Have you seen any White Pointer attacks on Seals?

J. TOPI: Yeah, I have. I’ve seen a couple at Ruapuke.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Hang on to those for a minute. Any attacks at the Titi Islands? 

J. TOPI: No. None there.

CRAWFORD: Have you heard about any other people who have seen White Pointer attacks on Seals in the Northern Titi islands? 

J. TOPI: Not really, no. 

CRAWFORD: Have you heard about anybody, any place around Stewart Island - seeing White Pointers taking Seals? 

J. TOPI: No, I haven’t. 

CRAWFORD: But you have seen White Pointers take Seals off Ruapuke? 

J. TOPI: I’ve only seen the remains of the Seal - as in, washed up on the beach. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly when was that? 

J. TOPI: Oh, you just see them from time to time. I don’t spend a lot of time there now. Maybe one every ten years, you might see a chomp mark. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Would that be throughout your life? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, throughout my life. 

CRAWFORD: You and your family have a unique perspective. There are a limited number of people that have the family and traditional experience around Ruapuke that you have, 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Have there been changes in White Pointers around Ruapuke more recently? 

J. TOPI: I’m not sure. I know that the Pāua divers sometimes get scared off Seal Rocks out there. Because of the Whites. 

CRAWFORD: On the northeast corner of Ruapuke? 

J. TOPI: Yes, right. 

CRAWFORD: And then you’ve got the family story of Caroline Jack.

J. TOPI: Yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Have you heard about Caroline Jack in the more recent years?

J. TOPI: No, no. Nothing recent. One time, I took the Old Man’s boat, - when I first had the idea of going Shark cage diving. I thought I’d go and try it, to see if I could pull a fish in - then we’re onto something. So, I went and got a head with Salmon guts, because I knew it was oily. I left it so it had all the oil coming out of it. Me and a mate spent a day, just on the north side of Breakseas Island ...

CRAWFORD: Breakseas on the southeast side of Ruapuke? 

J. TOPI: Sou’east corner, yeah. Where the wreck was.

CRAWFORD: Which wreck? 

J. TOPI: This wreck here. I believe it was one of the old tugs from Bluff, the old steamer. We hung around there for a day, just chumming out with the bait to see if we could drag something in. And we didn’t get anything.

CRAWFORD: You were specifically trying to bring in a White Pointer?

J. TOPI: Yeah. We could see the oil slick running away to the eastward when the flood was going. And then when the ebb started, it come in around all down through here, where I knew the scent would go. And there’s a high populations of Seals all around this area. So, I thought this would be a good spot to try. And we never got anything for the two days we were there. And then we moved over to Seal Rocks, we had a go there, and we didn’t bring anything up there either. Whether it was the wrong bait or what, I don’t know. I was going to go back and try Tuna and see if I changed bait, if that would drag something in. 

CRAWFORD: But you didn’t do that? 

J. TOPI: But we never done it. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s go back to the idea of seeing Seal carcasses. Not so much the actual attack itself, but the remnants of the attack?

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: They would just wash up on the beach? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. Every now and again you would get one - it would wash up on the beach. But very, very rare. 

CRAWFORD: Have you heard of people who have seen attacks on Seals?

J. TOPI: To me, it seems rare - for the amount of Shark population that’s there. I have spent quite a bit of time around the back of the islands, and I know they’re there because Peter and Mike are working over there. Even prior to that, going back years before they started [Shark cage operations], we were still fishing around here then, and I never seen any attacks. 

CRAWFORD: So, even without people seeing attacks on Seals, you’d say that within the past ten years, there have been relatively lots of White Pointers amongst the Northern Titis?

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Would you put the number of White Pointers around Ruapuke at about the same level as the Northern Titis, or greater or less?

J. TOPI: I’d say less than, to be honest. 

CRAWFORD: Relative to when you were a younger man, was it the case that you just didn’t hear so much about the White Pointers over at the Titi islands? Or were they common there, even then? 

J. TOPI: I believe they were common there then, personally. 

CRAWFORD: You had heard about them at the Titis, even back in the day? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. You kind of heard, every now and then.  I’ve never seen it, so I can’t really comment on it, but I have heard that there was a couple caught earlier on before they started Shark cage diving by Greenbone nets. They're an inshore net, and Sharks are obviously in hard, somewhere lurking around in a lot shallower water. When I say 'shallow' - like when we’re working on board the [Kumia II??], we were in depths of 75 metres - that sort of thing. And when you’re Greenboning, you’re right in against the shoreline. 

CRAWFORD: Something like 20 metres? 

J. TOPI: Twenty metres would be deep - more like ten metres. I had heard of a few Sharks being caught in this area, but I never physically seen them meself. 

CRAWFORD: Back in the day.

J. TOPI: Back in the day. I know that [Tucker Williamson??] had caught one, because he brought it home on a fishing competition day. But I can’t remember when the fishing competition day was. I think it was in February sometime. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly what year? 

J. TOPI: Oh jeez, it’d be in the newspaper. 

CRAWFORD: Are we talking like twenty years ago?

J. TOPI: Yeah, it’d be something like that. Fifteen to twenty years ago, yeah. Bluff used to have a fishing competition, and they were after the biggest Cod. There was a 10,000 dollar prize for the biggest Cod over five kilos. But no one ever caught it, because every time that [competition] weekend was up ... it was always screaming. So, everyone was limited to Bluff harbour and couldn’t get anything. [both laugh] But a couple of boats had ventured out. And I remember Tucker had caught a White Pointer, and brought it in at that time. It’d be twenty years ago that that would have happened. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. I will check the newspapers for that kind of story. One of the most important things that I’m trying to get to here is ... it appears that you, based on what you know, and from what you’ve heard, over the past 10 years - both Ruapuke and the Titi Islands had White Pointers. But there were more White Pointers over by the Titi Islands than at Ruapuke?

J. TOPI: Yes. More sightings that we have seen, and you've got to take them into context. Like Riki, who has always fished around here for the last ten, fifteen years. He's probably had more sightings here than anyone.

CRAWFORD: Around Ruapuke?

J. TOPI: Around Ruapuke.

CRAWFORD: This is the point that I’m trying to get to. That when people talk about sightings, it has a whole lot to do with who’s doing what - especially how many people are out there. And there really are not that many people that go close around Ruapuke, other than the Ruapuke Islanders?

J. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: And if I recall correctly, that’s something like three families?

J. TOPI: Yep, yep, yep. 

CRAWFORD: The Topis - who else?

J. TOPI: Used to be the Fifes - [Carroll Fife??] and that, they used to fish out of there. That’s probably about us really. Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: So, a relatively small number of people. And if you don’t go and talk to the right people, like for instance Riki ...

J. TOPI: Yeah, Riki sees them all the time. 

CRAWFORD: And that’s because of what he does, and where he does it. 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Some people have said that there have been major changes in the numbers of these White Pointers over the past years. Have you ever heard anything about that? 

J. TOPI: No. I’ve wondered that, but I’ve never heard that. They put a total ban on catching a White Pointer. Full stop. Which is good. 

CRAWFORD: So, the protection ...

J. TOPI: The protection. And I've always wondered if that has helped boost the numbers up. But then I think back. In one breath, yeah maybe. But then in the other breath, you think "Well, fifteen years ago, you’d see one speedboat parked up there at the boat ramp - that was a big weekend." I know we done the Cod survey ... we went and seen [Mary Leask??]. And we asked her what was the biggest number of boots that have been out in any one day. And that was 185 speedboats, had checked in with her in one day on the southern coast. So, there’s a lot more people out there now.

CRAWFORD: A greater number of eyes on the water. 

J. TOPI: Eyes on the water, yeah.

CRAWFORD: You can have the same number of Sharks, with a greater number of Human eyes on the water - and you can get the idea that there has been an increase in abundance.

J. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Other people have talked about that as well. And other changes in the ecosystem that could also have had an effect. Let's get back to that change in White Pointer protection status. Back in the pre-protection days, did you ever hear about people specifically going out to target White Pointers. For whatever reason? 

J. TOPI: No, no. Just me. Because I thought about it ... before the protection order came in I was going to try to catch one, just so I could catch one. But I had never personally heard of anyone actively looking or trying to catch one. Not to say that they didn’t do it. When I was younger, I never heard of it. 

CRAWFORD: But nothing really by way of an active trophy fishery? 

J. TOPI: No. I’ve never heard of it. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever hear about people who went out specifically in order to kill White Pointers to remove a perceived threat? 

J. TOPI: No, I never really heard of that either. 

CRAWFORD: Not around Ruapuke, not around Bluff? 

J. TOPI: No. Not to say it didn’t happen, but I never heard of it. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Back in the day, did you ever hear about White Pointers near Bluff, on the other side of Ocean Beach associated with the freezer works?

J. TOPI: I did. I did hear there must have been some sort of outlet for Ocean Beach, over the back here. I heard that there was supposed to be allegedly there, a concentration of White Pointers in that area, because of that feed. 

CRAWFORD: Back in the day? 

J. TOPI: Back in the day.

CRAWFORD: I'm guessing that was before the freezer works would have shut down? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, that was before the freezer works shut. One of my close mates, his father worked there. He always swore there were Whites swimming around just outside, because of the blood and guts with offal that was being discharged out there.

CRAWFORD: Were there ever any encounters between the White Pointers?

J. TOPI: Never heard. 

CRAWFORD: Maybe you would have heard, being a small town. 

J. TOPI: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I never. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s go back to general distribution. For all of New Zealand, when you think White Pointer aggregations - where do you think of? 

J. TOPI: Right down this area, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: So, Foveaux Strait, south end of the South Island? Or more Stewart Island?

J. TOPI: I think anywhere from Houseroof Rock, south. 

CRAWFORD: Then around Stewart Island?

J. TOPI: Yeah, more so where the Seal populations are. 

CRAWFORD: That’s one of the things I wanted to get to. When you think about aggregations of Seals in this greater region, where are the hotspots for Seals that you know of? 

J. TOPI: Hotspot for Seals ... obviously Ruapuke Island, you've got the North Islands around here. You would have a wee population around Port Adventure. Outside the Bishops and that up here. Or Smoky Beach around there, you get a few Seals there. 

CRAWFORD: What about the Western side of Stewart Island? 

J. TOPI: Western side? I haven’t done much fishing over there. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. What about the southeast region? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, there’s populations there - very small population at Pegasus. And also as you’re coming around, you get them in towards the bottom end of Southwest Cape - you got them there. Which would explain why we seen that fish down there, I reckon. Because there’s a few Seals skidding around between those islands. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Foveaux Strait, heading west - when you think about Seal hotspots ...

J. TOPI: Once again, I think Centre Island, and up around these Escape Reefs and that. The next hotspot I’m guessing would be in Te Waewae Bay, right the way along up into the [Fudder??] there - Port Craig’s corner. 

CRAWFORD: Right, ok. And then up around into Fiordland - do you get large numbers of Seals?

J. TOPI: In places you do, like ... they call it Seal Bay. The whole rocky bits are just dotted with them. Of course, the Seals won’t climb up a mountain - they want somewhere they can just whip in and whip out. That’s sort of where the bay hooks around a bit, and there will be a wee colony in there. And you’ll know that if there’s a colony of Seals there, then there’s a probability that there could be something swimming outside there. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of Seal abundance over time ...

J. TOPI: There’s a lot more Seals around, yes.

CRAWFORD: Over how long have they been increasing?

J. TOPI: Ten years - there’s been an explosion. 

CRAWFORD: You reckon it's the past decade that was the biggest change?

J. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Which is also the same decade where people have been seeing more White Pointers ...

J. TOPI: And more boats. 

CRAWFORD: When you take all of that into account - do you think there has been a real change in abundance, a real increase in White Pointers around - not just observations of them? 

J. TOPI: Yes, I believe so. The food supply is there for them.

CRAWFORD: And that change in food supply has happened at the same time as protection, and the DOC tagging studies, and the cage tour dive operations. So, you’ve got all ...

J. TOPI: Whole bunch of things. 

CRAWFORD: Whole bunch of things, happening at the same time. And it’s really difficult sometimes to tease these things apart. I think that’s part of the trouble here - that there are multiple things potentially happening at the same time. 

J. TOPI: I definitely agree with that. I mean, to sink a boat ... Someone goes "Oh, your boat sank." and you think “I’ve got a hole in the bottom, and it sunk.” It’s never like that. It's a chain of events that leads to that boat sinking. Like - he didn't clean out his bilge, so the pump will get a bit of shit in it, that’ll stop pumping for a couple of minutes, which let the water flow, and then he had been downstairs, and he hadn’t checked his manual bilge, which runs off the engine, and he hasn’t done that, and then that won't open - "Oh no, we’re in trouble!" And then the boat sinks. 

CRAWFORD: Right. This is all good. Getting back to those DOC and NIWA studies on the White Pointers - what, if anything, do you know about them?

J. TOPI: Not a lot. Just sort of glance in the paper every now and then. As in that they are tagging, and they’re actually being able to identify the fish with the scar patterns on them.

CRAWFORD: What, if anything, do you think we’ve learned about the White Pointers from the photo identification work? 

J. TOPI: Well, they sort of don’t really elaborate on it - but I think that they’re coming back to the same harbours.

CRAWFORD: That they see an animal, they recognize it as an individual, and next year or two years down the road they see the same animal again in that place?

J. TOPI: Same one again. 

CRAWFORD: That gets to this idea of residency, even if it's not permanent, it may be seasonal residency.

J. TOPI: Like the Muttonbird. They fly right round the planet, just to come back to the same hole in the ground. 

CRAWFORD: And that brings in this whole idea of residency - either part-time or full-time - and migration. If it’s part-time residency, but the animal does come back to the same place ... that’s why as an ecologist, I’m very interested when I hear stories about things like Caroline Jack.

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Do you know what kind of tags DOC were using?

J. TOPI: No, I don’t. Just thought it was some sort of tag that they jammed in the back of the fin. 

CRAWFORD: Well, they've used at least two different types of tags - . One of them was with hydroacoustic pingers.  And the other ones were satellite GPS. Did you hear about that distinction? 

J. TOPI: A little bit, because apparently they had some floats around Ruapuke, and that must be for the hydroacoustic ones. 

CRAWFORD: Floats in terms of receivers to pick up the signals from the Sharks? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: What do you know about the deployment of hydroacoustic receivers around Ruapuke? 

J. TOPI: I didn’t know nothing about it, till I seen the float sitting there. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever hear what happened from that study? 

J. TOPI: No, nothing. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of communication with Ruapuke Islanders from DOC and NIWA? 

J. TOPI: I didn’t hear nothing. 

CRAWFORD: So, you didn’t hear from them about the placements or the objectives or the results? 

J. TOPI: Nothing at all. Same as outside here ... knew that there was a float, just coming into Paterson Inlet here. I think there might have been two there that I’d seen.

CRAWFORD: Did you ever hear about lessons that were learned from those studies at all? 

J. TOPI: Nothing. The only thing I did hear was that apparently this float here had the most amount of pings of all the other floats. 

CRAWFORD: The float at the mouth of Paterson Inlet?

J. TOPI: Yeah. Different fish going past it, or whatever.

CRAWFORD: When I asked you before about White Pointers in Paterson Inlet - back in the day did you ...

J. TOPI: Nothing. When we were kids, I always wondered why Mum and Dad bought us a boogie board and flippers. [Laughs] 

CRAWFORD: Shark bait?

J. TOPI: Yeah. [both laugh]

CRAWFORD: Ok. What about the satellite GPS tags - especially about the longer distance migrations?

J. TOPI: No. The only stuff I know is actually the overseas stuff. Every now and then I actually slow down and watch a bit of Discovery. And you see that they’re tracking them halfway round the planet. What was it? Some coast or whatever called 'Shark Alley.'

CRAWFORD: Are we talking about White Pointers that are tagged here in New Zealand? 

J. TOPI: No, no. 

CRAWFORD: Overseas? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. I know more about those ones over there, than what I do about these ones here. Only because of Discovery. At this stage. Like I probably don’t catch the right the programs for here, I suppose. 

CRAWFORD: So, you don't know much about what was learned about White Pointer migration based on animals tagged here?

J. TOPI: All I know is ... what I have heard in passing comment, is that apparently they go from here to the Great Barrier Reef, and then back again. 

CRAWFORD: Ok.

J. TOPI: Louise, when I took her down to the Aucklands, she reckons that they must drop down to 900 feet or something, and they just keep swimming. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, I'm not sure.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s assume that there are some big migrations. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be the case that individual White Pointers necessarily go one these migrations every year. You’ve already talked about - on at least a handful of occasions - about seeing White Pointers in and around Foveaux Strait or Stewart Islands during the off-season, during the southern winter.

J. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: So, some might be gone, but some of them still stay. 

J. TOPI: Probably still staying, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: But for those that do go away, why the hell do you think they come back here? 

J. TOPI: I don’t know. There’s another way of looking at that. Why do Eels live here, swim all the way to Tonga, and die up there. And then their offspring come back, and go back into the rivers here?

CRAWFORD: Right. With some different fish species, you get these long-range reproductive migrations.

J. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: One thing that you said that I don’t want to ignore ... you were talking about the importance of food - when I asked you about why the animals are aggregating at Ruapuke and the Northern Titi Islands. What do you figure might be the case with these animals and their reproduction? Have you heard from any of the old-timers or any of your sources, about reproduction in these White Pointers?

J. TOPI: Not a lot. I think I may have heard that perhaps they come in these shallow waters to breed. 

CRAWFORD: You mean in around Paterson Inlet?

J. TOPI: The inlet, yeah. I’m not sure. I couldn’t really comment there, because I don’t really know much about that side of it.

CRAWFORD: In terms of people ever seeing something that looked like White Pointers getting ready to mate - males and females. Is there anything that you’ve ever heard about when the males come and when the females come?

J. TOPI: No, no. I can’t say that. Like look at the Crayfish - you’ll get a run of males, and then a run of females, and things like that. 

CRAWFORD: But you haven't heard anything like that about the White Pointers?

J. TOPI: Haven’t heard anything, no. 

CRAWFORD: And haven’t seen anything yourself?

J. TOPI: Haven’t seen anything either.

CRAWFORD: In terms of the White Pointers that you’ve seen or heard about - has anybody ever seen anything like wounding patterns on females that might indicate courtship behaviour? Anything like that? 

J. TOPI: No. Other than the markings that we’ve sometimes seen. Like if we see a Shark, and you can see when they’re up close, you can see markings on them. But I’m not saying that ...

CRAWFORD: It's not necessarily female-specific wounding?

J. TOPI: Yeah. You can just sort of see the markings. I’ve also thought about one part when we first started chartering, and first started seeing them - maybe we should take a camera and take photos of them and hand them off to DOC and that. Just to say "This is what we seen that day, and this is what we seen the next."

CRAWFORD: You knew that DOC and NIWA were doing some type of photo identification work on the White Pointers, but you don’t know much about it?

J. TOPI: Yeah. Wouldn’t even know who to talk to. Probably have to go and try to find Clinton Duffy. He's probably the only one who knows anything about it. 

CRAWFORD: Right. What do you know about Clinton and his work? Have you ever met him or talked to him?

J. TOPI: Well, I’ve talked to him a couple of times. 

CRAWFORD: Regarding White Pointers? Or just in general? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. I sort of asked him how they were going, and that’s when they had the Jester I think then - the DOC boat. They were using a small boat that worked out of Stewart Island, and they worked out the North Islands. And he said to me that the fish they were tagging at the North Islands, there was a lot of them. Well, it was in a higher number. And when they went to the back of Ruapuke and tagged them, there was a lot less of them - but they were a much bigger fish. 

CRAWFORD: Any discussion about maybe why that was happening?

J. TOPI: No, no. He didn’t really elaborate on it. And I sort of didn’t really ask him why that was. He just said he reckoned that they were much bigger fish swimming around the back of here, than what they were there. 

CRAWFORD: Were they related in any way, in terms of being the same population? Any discussion about that?

J. TOPI: No. It was the first year that he done it, sort of thing. 

CRAWFORD: So, that was several years ago? Roughly when?

J. TOPI: Oh, crikey. Probably eight or nine years ago, I suppose they started tagging them.  Somewhere around there. I can’t remember exactly. It was a wee while ago though. 

CRAWFORD: And did you have a discussion with him that went on over years, or was it just that one? 

J. TOPI: No, it was just that once. I hardly ever see him. If I did run into him, I would have had him up, and say “What else did you find?”

CRAWFORD: Let's focus on White Pointer-Human interactions. Have you ever heard about any Level 4s in this region - aggressive behaviour or full-on attacks? Anything like that from the Chaslands, Stewart Island, Foveaux Strait, Ruapuke, up through Fiordland? 

J. TOPI: A very little bit - around Seal Islands. I don’t know if it’s a Level 4 or anything, but they’ve definitely scared the Pāua divers out of the water. 

CRAWFORD: Right. When you’re freediving, and a big White Pointer comes by, you’re going to get out of the water anyways - regardless of aggressive behaviour. 

J. TOPI: Of course you are, yeah.

CRAWFORD: But I'm talking about ...

J. TOPI: A full-on chomp.

CRAWFORD: A chomp, head-slashing, tail-slams ...

J. TOPI: No, I haven’t heard anything. 

CRAWFORD: Like highspeed impact. When a White Pointer wants you ...

J. TOPI: He's got you.

CRAWFORD: It’s pretty clear. Right? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Even if it's a miss, or it’s a mistaken identity. It’s pretty damn clear, because it’s a couple tonne of fish - with a very, very sharp front end. Have you heard of any Level 4’s in that sense?

J. TOPI: Only on the news. 

CRAWFORD: This region or elsewhere? 

J. TOPI: From elsewhere, outside this area. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of Shark-boat interactions, anything by way of Level 4s in that regard? 

J. TOPI: Not that I have seen at all, and not that I have really heard either. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of Level 3, high interest. Have you heard of very curious, but non-aggressive interactions with people? Swim-bys or circling?

J. TOPI: Swim-by’s - yeah. I‘ve heard of swim-bys from some mates in the Pāua diving sector. 

CRAWFORD: When and where, if you recall?

J. TOPI: Quite a few years back - we’re talking 15-odd years. 

CRAWFORD: Did you get the sense that they were just swim-bys? The animal was there, came by for a look, and moved on?

J. TOPI: Moved on, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Didn’t come back and start circling or anything?

J. TOPI: Didn’t come back. Well, we had one Shark swim around us, and that’s as far as it got. Whether it come back I’m not sure. I imagine it would. I mean, they’re curious creatures.

CRAWFORD: Whereabouts? Just kind of distributed anywhere? Or somewhere specifically?

J. TOPI: Anywhere, yeah. No region in particular.

CRAWFORD: What about Shark-boat interactions - Level 3, higher interest and circling?

J. TOPI: Yeah us, when we’re chartering. Basically been about it. 

CRAWFORD: Any changes over time in any of that? Any patterns?

J. TOPI: My crewmate [Peter Boyce??] used to work with Carroll Fife, who worked out of Ruapuke, and they only fished round the back. I know Pete and them said that they had seen a few. He’s away on holiday at the moment. They fished around the same area as Riki. I know that Pete said they had a White cruising around over there, just drifting around here in the back of the Hazelburghs. A lot of Seals there too again. They had a White cruising around there for quite a few hours. Just swimming around feeding, just being inquisitive, just grabbing something to eat. 

CRAWFORD: Might come circle around the boat, but didn’t knock it or anything like that?

J. TOPI: No, nothing like that. 

CRAWFORD: They didn’t get the sense that it was eyeing them as potential food or anything like that? 

J. TOPI: Predator? No, nothing like that. I remember when we were kids, a couple times we weren’t allowed to go swimming because there was someone must have seen a White in the bay at some stage. 

CRAWFORD: Which bay? 

J. TOPI: In Henrietta.

CRAWFORD: Ok. But when you compare interactions around here ... and you said something about the news, you compare this to the stories that come in from Western Australia - it’s like a completely different world?

J. TOPI: Yeah, completely different over there. 

CRAWFORD: Over there, it’s sometimes an attack every couple of months.

J. TOPI: Yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: What do you reckon about that?

J. TOPI: Well, I don’t know. Is it a lack of food over there? I don’t know. Does temperature have something to do with how aggressive they can get? I wouldn’t have a clue. Environment? 

CRAWFORD: But when you think about this region - the south end of the South Island - it’s a major aggregation place. I mean out of all of New Zealand, you identified this place as the hotspot. 

J. TOPI: Yeah,

CRAWFORD: I don't know if I did ask you - is there any place else that you think of as another hotspot ...

J. TOPI: For Whites? 

CRAWFORD: White Pointers, yeah.

J. TOPI: Nah, I don’t. There’s definitely the southern area but that seems to be it.

CRAWFORD: Yet this is not the place where attacks have taken place. 

J. TOPI: No. 

CRAWFORD: When you do think of attacks in New Zealand waters ...

J. TOPI: Chathams. I think the Chathams, where that bloke got all mauled up there Pāua diving. 

CRAWFORD: Kina Scollay?

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: And when you think of other places that you've heard about attacks ...

J. TOPI: Australia. 

CRAWFORD: No - I mean, here in New Zelaand. 

J. TOPI: Oh, in New Zealand? I think the Chathams are the only place I can think of an attack. 

CRAWFORD: Ok.

4. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - DIRECT EXPERIENCES

CRAWFORD: Last five years, among the Northern Titi Islands. Roughly, how many White Pointers do you think you’ve seen in that region during that time?

J. TOPI: Probably 15 at least, I’d say. And I’ve seen one in between the Big South Cape and Poutama, directly in the middle here. 

CRAWFORD: Alright, let’s talk about that animal. It was a single incident?

J. TOPI: Yeah, that was last year.

CRAWFORD: You were running a fishing charter?

J. TOPI: No, we were running Muttonbirders down to the Islands, and we also put our Crayfish gear out, down there as well. Along a stretch there they call the Nuggets. Trying to do two things at once. 

CRAWFORD: If you were taking Muttonbirders down, that means it’s what time of year? 

J. TOPI: It would have been clocking into May.

CRAWFORD: And you were also working some Craypots?

J. TOPI: We had the Crayfish pots scattered along what they call the Nuggets, down here. We were just going down there to start bringing them home, so it must have been towards late-ish May. It was quite a strong westerly coming across, and I was upstairs. We already pretty much had part of a deckload down on deck - we were coming here to grab the last of them from the Nuggets. I was just sitting upstairs - looking at the Big South Cape, not really thinking anything. The boat rolled over, and as it rolled over - from the window upstairs, it looked like I was going to land on the back of this White Pointer getting along. It would have been probably four metres long, thereabouts. Just aimlessly cruising. I’m surprised his tail didn’t actually touch the bow of the boat. 

CRAWFORD: So, you were up on the flying deck? 

J. TOPI: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: What kind of swells, roughly? 

J. TOPI: Would have been probably a couple of metres coming across. 

CRAWFORD: So, decently heavy.

J. TOPI: Yeah, reasonably. But kind of light for being there. She laid over, and as she laid over ... I’m sitting upstairs having my smoke, and looking like I'm about to fall down on top of this White Pointer. 

CRAWFORD: And the animal was just cruising along? 

J. TOPI: Just cruising. Wasn’t phased about us, or anything. Just casual as. 

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’re talking about at Southwest Cape on Stewart Island, did the animal give any indication that it was paying any attention to your boat?

J. TOPI: No, it wasn’t. Our bow just went across his tail, and he just carried on as if nothing was even there. 

CRAWFORD: You did your thing ... 

J. TOPI: And he did his thing. 

CRAWFORD: That’s almost not even a swim-by. That’s a Level 1. 

J. TOPI: Yeah. We spun around, to come back and take a look. I was yelling to the boys “Look at that! Look at that!” They were both standing at the door, but they didn’t actually see it. We got some high definition cameras looking over the bow of the boat and everything. Unfortunately, it was raining like today, and the area on the camera where it was - a frickin' raindrop was there. [both laugh] You couldn’t see anything. I spun the boat back around, but we couldn’t find him again. He had just cruised on. 

CRAWFORD: That was last year? 

J. TOPI: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let's get back to the White Pointers you've seen over the past five years, up around the Northern Titi Islands. Your charters there would be for Muttonbirders during the season, and also recreational fishermen?

J. TOPI: Yep, charters. When we leave Bluff, and we get down here and do our Oyster tows, the wind is traditionally westerly here. So, I would say about 70% of our time when we go Codding, it's spent in amongst the islands. Nice and flat, I can cook the feed for them, and they get to catch a fish.

CRAWFORD: They’re rod-and-reel fishing? 

J. TOPI: Rod-and-reel, yeah.

CRAWFORD: And you reckon maybe about ten White Pointers, over those past five years, in among those islands?

J. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: You didn’t spend that kind of time among those islands prior to your charters, so you don’t have anything really to compare it to? 

J. TOPI: No, no.

CRAWFORD: But you do have extensive experience around Ruapuke before and after your charter operations?

J. TOPI: Around Ruapuke, yes. 

CRAWFORD: And some of your recreational charter fishing has been around Ruapuke? 

J. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Tell me first about the White Pointers you've seen around the Northern Titi Islands over the past five years.

J. TOPI: Yeah. In amongst the TIti islands we’ve seen, like I said, about ten of them. I’d imagine they are pretty much the same fish. I was trying to identify them but they went through so quick. Nine times out of ten, when they come up - they’re actually chasing a Cod up on the line. Or just being inquisitive 

CRAWFORD: But there’s always fishing happening? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, always. Pete’s quite often filleting the Cod for them, or skinning and boning it. So, there’s all that going back over the sides, which we always do. Sometimes they want to keep the heads, so it’s just the frames or how they want it cleaned. Some days it’s only the back bone going over, some days it’s the whole fish once the fillet's taken off. It always seems to be in this area ...

CRAWFORD: In which area? 

J. TOPI: In this general area around these North Islands, where we do see the White Pointers. I haven’t seen anything further south, or further north. Sometimes we went up the shoreline along here, but I haven’t seen anything. 

CRAWFORD: Up the shoreline along where? 

J. TOPI: Up towards the Saddle. 

CRAWFORD: Right. 

J. TOPI: In along here, sometimes I’ve popped in here at Smoky as well. 

CRAWFORD: What about down towards Bench Island? 

J. TOPI: We haven’t seen anything. We have been cleaning and that there, but we haven’t physically seen anything.

CRAWFORD: Do you ever go fishing down East Cape? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, East Cape and that, we fish out here too. But once again, I haven’t seen anything. 

CRAWFORD: But you have seen White Pointers around Edwards and Jacky Lee? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, in that area there. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Any other islands, or in between islands? 

J. TOPI: Just in between, in this area here, is where they are. 

CRAWFORD: Would you have seen most of the White Pointers within close proximity to an island, or more offshore between the islands? 

J. TOPI: Close proximity, yeah. Probably about 150 metres off. 

CRAWFORD: Is it the case that the people who you take out, that they would include that as a destination? That they would want to see the White Pointers?

J. TOPI: It’s just like a bonus. 

CRAWFORD: It happens to be that is where protection and fishing for your charter is best? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Do you get people that when they ring up, they inquire about a charter and say something specifically about the White Pointers? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, we do get that on the odd occasion. Kelly does all those bookings and that. We just refer them straight on to Mike or Peter.

CRAWFORD: To the Shark cage tour dive operations?

J. TOPI: Yeah. But everyone - once they see it - they’re right into it. Like the Shark will circle the boat for about 20 minutes or thereabouts. Other times they’ll just come up, have a quick look around, then they disappear down the depths again. 

CRAWFORD: Let’s get a split on that. There’s Level 1 observation, Level 2 swim-by, Level 3 interest and Level 4 aggression/attitude. Almost all your encounters, there were fish on the line, or fish cleaning? 

J. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: For those ten Sharks, what percentage would be swim-by versus a higher level of interest?

J. TOPI: It would be a 50/50 there. It would be 50% just cruising ...

CRAWFORD: There and gone? 

J. TOPI: There and gone. And then the other 50% of the time, if they’re hungry, you’ll actually watch them swallow the Cod frames.

CRAWFORD: Are they feeding up at the surface, or are they feeding down below, or a little bit of both? 

J. TOPI: Little bit of both. One time, on an early charter, we actually had a 'couta lying on deck. So, Pete wrapped a rope around it, and he shoved it over the side. 

CRAWFORD: Fish would be about a metre long? 

J. TOPI: About a metre long. He wrapped the line round the fish, and he chucked it over, and said "Quick - grab your cameras!" And it was a female, she come up underneath the boat. Interesting, because what I have sort of noticed is one will cruise around the outside, and then one comes from underneath and takes the bait. They’re working together, sort of thing. That’s one thing I have noticed. And the smaller Shark was cruising around the outside of the boat, and everyone was watching it - thinking this one’s going to take the bait. And then this big girl comes up and grabbed it from underneath the boat. She just sort of lightly hung on to it, and Pete just sort of gently pulled the sting, and she just come up with it - just like that. And then all of a sudden, it was up about the middle of the boat. All of the boys had their cameras out, I was standing up by the [hauler??]. Pete was midway down the deck, and there would have been seven or eight blokes between me and him, and another eight or nine down the back end of the boat. And she come up with it, her head come out of the water - right up. Jeez, her eyes and all were out of water, and she just followed this hunk of bait up, beside the boat. And then she decided she wanted it, and she took a bite, and then next thing - all I remember was a big splash of water. Seen the tail come up, so, she’s doing a complete tail-flip 180. And then she dropped and disappeared out of sight. There was seven or eight people between me and Pete. By the time the water had finally settled, there was just me and Pete standing there on the rail. The rest of the buggers had bolted out the side. [laughs]

CRAWFORD: Roughly when was that?

J. TOPI: That would have been about May.

CRAWFORD: Which year? 

J. TOPI: About two years ago now.

CRAWFORD: That was off Edwards? 

J. TOPI: Yes, that was off Edwards. 

CRAWFORD: A smaller Shark and a bigger Shark?

J. TOPI: She was quite a nice size. I’d say about mid-sized. She wasn’t huge. She wasn’t 20-foot or anything. But she would have been, I'm  betting on 16 or 17-foot. Somewhere around there maybe. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. How did you reckon that it was a female?

J. TOPI: Oh, just because the girls are always bigger, and the boys are always skinnier, aren’t they?

CRAWFORD: This animal in particular had the girth to it?

J. TOPI: Yeah, she had the girth. 

CRAWFORD: But it was based on body shape rather than, you didn’t see the underbelly?

J. TOPI: No, no, no. 

CRAWFORD: So, you don’t know for sure about male or female for either of them? 

J. TOPI: No. 

CRAWFORD: And the smaller animal on the outside, it was more streamlined?

J. TOPI: Yeah, more like a bullet. 

CRAWFORD: Do you remember them coming in together, or did one come in first?

J. TOPI: I remember the first time that they come around and done the swim-by, she was underneath the wee one. The wee one was swimming around on top and just breaking the surface with the top of its fin as it was going around the boat. Of course, when you’re looking off this boat, you’re looking down - so you can see the fish. She was down underneath the wee one. 

CRAWFORD: Did you figure that they came in at the same time? 

J. TOPI: Yes, I reckon they did. 

CRAWFORD: Did you figure that they were swimming together? 

J. TOPI: Yes, I reckon they were. Or hunting together, or whatever they were doing, yeah. Your attention was on this one here, and she just slipped up from underneath and grabbed a piece and just come up with it. Even when we’re doing our charters, when the boys are winding up a fish, once its gets up to the side of the boat, you’ll find that the other one’s taking the boys eyes off something. I know from experience to look down beside the boat, because something else is about to get that line. And wham! There they are. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Last thing about the incident with the two Sharks - did you ever get any sense that incident would have pushed this into a Level 4? Was there any attitude or aggression? 

J. TOPI: No, not really. 

CRAWFORD: It was still in that kind of interest level? 

J. TOPI: It was still casual. If things look like they’re going to slip that way, we would just pull the plug and get out of there. 

CRAWFORD: Out of all those ten Sharks, where you’ve got either fish in the water and or cleaning going on, were they all in the casual category? Or were there any level 4s, where there was something that took it to the next level? 

J. TOPI: No, not really. Not that I’ve seen. Another time that we took a party away around Stewart Island, we departed from Bluff, went and got a feed of Oysters, we were on the west side of Edwards drifting along. Peter Scott was anchored up on the nor'west corner of Edwards. The northern tip, but straight to the west was basically where he was. We sort of come up above him, stopped our engine and we just drifted down. He wasn't getting anything. And then all of a sudden there was a big one come up, and swam around us for five or six minutes, and then disappeared again. I believe he got him after that.

CRAWFORD: It could have been attracted to your boat?

J. TOPI: Maybe. I don’t know. Could have been the engine sound or something, maybe just passing through, I don’t know. But she come up to us, and swum around us for a while. I got a little bit nervous then, because some of the passengers wanted to get up forward. “No, no. You stay down the back here, in case you frickin' fall off or anything like that.” They got quite a few photos then. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Before, you had described the situation with the pair or Sharks - one small, one large. Did you ever have any incidences there with multiple Sharks?

J. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. Most of our encounters when we’re in this area is multiple animals. 

CRAWFORD: In that sense, are they coming in at different times, or coming in at the same time? 

J. TOPI: Pretty much the same time. Once you see one, and you realize that the birds are buggering off the water - is a good sign that something’s about. Then you start looking around, and eventually you’ll see a fin just cruising along. Quite often they don’t actually come up to the boat, they’ll just hang off 20 metres or thereabouts. They’ll just kind of circle around. Every now and again, they’ll get more inquisitive and they'll actually come in. I’ve never seen them like in 'Jaws' or anything like that, you know - aggressive.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Roughly what percentage of those incidences in that region would have been when a cage tour dive operation was in operation? Either then, or just before? 

J. TOPI: Percentage? I’d say 50% maybe. 

CRAWFORD: And then 50% of the incidences, you were there by yourself?

J. TOPI: By ourselves, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: And the animals were still coming up to your boat? 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

5. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS

CRAWFORD: There was one other encounter that I hadn’t seen, but it was in the area. We'd been down to the Auckland Islands, dropping Louise off to do the Seal project that was going on down there. 

CRAWFORD: When was this?

J. TOPI: Probably about four years ago. We just basically done the boat up, put it on the water, and we took off down there once we got home from the coast. That year that they had gone down, when they go out in the boats they have to take two speed boats at a time. Each speedboat has two outboards - just for safety, because there’s no one down there to help them. They had check-in times down there and everything. There were certain areas they had to go to for their research. They had one of the boats ... this was actually video'd, one of the boats was actually sitting out in the bay, and the other one was videoing. Between them and the shore, which wasn’t that far when you get into the island there ...

CRAWFORD: Roughly how far? 

J. TOPI: Probably within a 100 metres. There was a big White cruising around down there. It sort of indicated to me that well south - because the Auckland Islands are getting down there in the latitudes - and the White Pointers are hunting down there as well. 

CRAWFORD: Or whatever they’re doing there? 

J. TOPI: Or whatever. They’re down there, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: How did you hear that story?

J. TOPI: I heard that because when we come back, one of the DOC boys said “I’ve got something to show you.” He opened up his laptop, and they were underwater and he showed us the whole thing. It was a good-sized fish, too. 

CRAWFORD: Do you remember who that DOC person was? 

J. TOPI: No, I can’t. To be honest. But if we get a hold of Louise, she’d be able to put you right on it. 

CRAWFORD: That’s great. Ok. Auckland Islands. What do you know about the wreck of the General Grant down there? 

J. TOPI: A little bit. [Dino??] was one of the ones who actually went down and swum on it. 

CRAWFORD: I’d like to hear more about that. He swam on the wreck - in what capacity?

J. TOPI: They were actively down there, looking for it.

CRAWFORD: A salvage operation? 

J. TOPI: It was, yes. 

CRAWFORD: What you know about the General Grant salvage?

J. TOPI: Attempted salvage. All I know is that I met [Dino??] years after he was doing this. He’s from up north. He come down, and they done the dives and everything.

CRAWFORD: When was this? Roughly?

J. TOPI: I can’t remember when they done it. I remember that I was youngish - probably about 15 years ago at least, they would have went down to have a look for it. I met [Dino??] years later - he was part of the film crew that me and To had done for a tv show. He was the underwater diver for it, and it was then that I learned he had gone down to the Aucklands in search of the General Grant. He just said that he had been down there. He didn’t say he’d seen anything, or anything like that. But I never really interrogated him on what they got up to when they were down there. 

CRAWFORD: Fair enough. 

J. TOPI: Because I believe there weren’t even allowed to go ashore or anything. 

CRAWFORD: Well, I think it was a bit of a dicey affair, in some regards. 

J. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Do you remember the old-timers here in Bluff telling you about that salvage operation? Some kind of Navy interdiction, chasing around the Islands?

J. TOPI: Oh no, I didn’t hear anything about that. 

CRAWFORD: You’re going to read in the transcripts from somebody else about the construction of New Zealand’s maybe first Shark cage - and it was for the purpose of that attempted salvage operation.

J. TOPI: Well it’s interesting you should say that, because it’s Dino that runs a Shark diving operation in the North Island. Maybe that was his insight into it. He told me what he does up there ... they must have little Blues or Makos or something, they’re just small fish anyway, small Sharks. He says "You got the diving goggles with magnifying glasses in them, so when they swim along - they look like they’re twice as big as what they really are." [both laugh heartily]

Copyright © 2019 Jack Topi and Steve Crawford