John Fogarty

1. EXPERIENCE IN AOTEAROA/NZ COASTAL ENVIRONMENTS

CRAWFORD: Ok, John. Let's get started. I think you told me you were born in 1939 in Invercargill?

FOGARTY: That’s right. 

CRAWFORD: What’s the first recollection you have of spending a significant amount of time around the coastal waters of New Zealand? 

FOGARTY: Well, with my parents, I went to Halfmoon Bay on Stewart Island as a three-year old. We stayed in Little Leask Bay in a little tiny crib. I used to go to the wharf every day, and fish for Butterfish, and also pretend to help some of the people that were gathering and drying and organizing Kelp, and blowing up the bag. They took it to the Muttenbird Islands, and used them to pack Muttenbird. 

CRAWFORD: This was the 1940’s - during the war years?

FOGARTY: Just near the end of the war. 

CRAWFORD: When you went over there as a child, was that for holidays or special events? 

FOGARTY: It was for holidays we went, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: On the order of weeks per year? 

FOGARTY: Probably about a week a year, when I was small. 

CRAWFORD: On the South Island side of Foveaux Strait, say to the age of 10-12, did you spend a significant amount of time on this side of the coast? 

FOGARTY: I did spend a significant amount of time in the estuary here in Invercargill. One of the most memorable experiences I’ve ever had, and it’s not a very pleasant memory, six Sea Scouts were all rescued from the estuary. I was 13 at the time, and we were all unconscious, and taken to hospital. None of us died, but we were lucky to get saved. We were saved by two people who finally got medals and all that. 

CRAWFORD: What happened? 

FOGARTY: We used to go sailing in the estuary. We had a standard boat, a klinker-built dinghy, which is a standard size for the Sea Scouts. We used to go in the races, because they raced yachts on the estuary in Invercargill before it got blocked up with the sewer. We were out racing one day in November, and we watched a number of yachts were blown over, and we were sort of laughing and cackling and watching. And all of a sudden we got blown over. It was just a big storm come through. And there’s a sewer pipe came out from Janet Street and along the Bluff Road. It went out to the centre of the channel, and we got hooked into that with some of the rigging - so we couldn’t get back to shore. After two hours, and a lot of hearts stopping for people - because you could see all the cars all stacked up on Bluff Roadway watching. Two people, Mick Pope and Brian Dawson took a dinghy from where the bridge is now, the new bridge - round to Janet Street, launched it, rode out. We put two people that were really sick in the dinghy, and we hung onto the side of the dinghy. None of us remember anything until we were in the hospital in heat cages. 

CRAWFORD: So, it was hypothermia that was causing the great stress?

FOGARTY: It was, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Wow. Ok. Let's go back just a bit. You were spending time at Stewart Island in the place that your parents had at Leask Bay within Halfmoon Bay. And you also spent time around the water on this side, but it was mostly in the estuary?

FOGARTY: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: You also mentioned being in the Sea Scouts. When did you join that organization? 

FOGARTY: I joined the Sea Scouts, roughly when I’d be 10 or 12. I used to spend all my life going down to the estuary, and sailing little boats. And I used to also be bailer boy on some of the yachts that went out, because I wasn’t big enough to sail with it - I was still going to school. 

CRAWFORD: These would be yachts that would head out from the estuary into Foveaux Strait?

FOGARTY: No, no. They didn’t go out into the Strait. They were yachts that raced in the estuary. [Paiselogs??] was the design of the boat. Flat bottom boat that was easy to get around in. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. But still a lot of sailing in the estuary, a lot of time on the water. Any time fishing? 

FOGARTY: Yes. When I was 16 and going to work, I started as an apprentice plumber. And the premises I was serving my time in was next door to [Thole’s??] Fish Shop, and they had a boat called the 'Star of the Sea'. Saturdays and some other days, I’d go out with them fishing. We normally went to the Bishops at Stewart Island which is a nob of rocks, north end of Stewart Island - that was one of the best places. And I recall once catching the biggest Groper, and when I put my hands in its gills, and lifted it out as high as I could, it still had its tail lying on the deck. [laughs]

CRAWFORD: You were a 16-year-old at the time? That would have been a five- or six-foot fish! 

FOGARTY: Yeah, that’s right. 

CRAWFORD: So, you had some fishing experience, and some of that fishing experience was immediately adjacent to Stewart Island.

FOGARTY: It was.

CRAWFORD: In terms of your own fishing activities, did you fish the estuary? Did you fish Foveaux Strait? 

FOGARTY: We fished the estuary mainly. We used nets for Flatfish, and we used to fish the spit - which is where the estuary comes out into Foveaux Strait. I had a really good friend whose Father was a hunter-gatherer sort of guy - he used to take us fishing, Floundering. Myself and Pat Springford, who was my friend across the road, and his Dad. The father would walk with the sugar bag, and we would pull the net. He used to sometimes sell some of the fish, that’s what we did. We did the same thing in the estuary as well, we used a boat. At low tide you could stand on the shore, and you would row your boat out round in a semi-circle, and pull the net up onto shore. 

CRAWFORD: Did you spend any significant time at Oreti Beach, or any of the other beaches along the south shore? 

FOGARTY: Not until I was 16, when I first joined the surf club. 

CRAWFORD: That's when you joined New Zealand’s Surf Life Saving?

FOGARTY: Yes, I did. Oreti Beach. At the time, for the Surf Bronze, you had to be 16 or over. 

CRAWFORD: You were out of school then?

FOGARTY: Well, I was still in school when I when I joined the surf club. But I left school shortly after.

CRAWFORD: But you continued with the Surf Life Saving Club after you started your work as an apprentice? 

FOGARTY: Yes, I did. 

CRAWFORD: Give me a sense roughly, of how much time you would have been spending at the Surf Life Saving Club in those days? 

FOGARTY: Well, what we used to do was live there from Christmas time until March, when the Surf Champs were on. We would go out at night from Invercargill ... we had a meeting place behind the baths, we had an old car that we used to use. And we would drive out, train, and then we would have our meals and go to bed, come up in the morning, back into the pool to do some swimming, then all go to work. And then we’d meet at the pool after, and go back to the beach. And that went on for about three months. 

CRAWFORD: Wow. For that period of time, pretty much every spare minute that you weren’t working, you were one way or another at the club or swimming? 

FOGARTY: That’s right. 

CRAWFORD: The training that you talked about, was that training in association with your preparation as a Surf Life Saver? Or was that for competition? 

FOGARTY: It was both. It was competitive. Surf Life Saving was very competitive at the time. There were teams, six-men, four-men, and then there were individual events. So, you trained for whatever you were good at. We had six men as the junior, and six men as the senior, and in 1956, I’m pretty sure of the date, New Zealand Surf Champs were held for the first time on Oreti Beach. 

CRAWFORD: Did you compete? 

FOGARTY: I competed, yeah 

CRAWFORD: What events? 

FOGARTY: I was in the junior four, and the junior six, and I competed in the surf race. 

CRAWFORD: These were all swimming-based rather than rescue boating? 

FOGARTY: This was all swimming-based. A surf race is where you line up, and the set of buoys sit out about 400 yards off the beach, and you swim out, along the back of the buoys, then swim back in, and run up the beach. The first person back is the winner. That’s how it all worked. And then they had belt races, where you towed a line out, and you put your hand up out at the buoy - the same ones we would swim around in the surf race. 

CRAWFORD: Were there other events including the rescue canoes and that type of thing?

FOGARTY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: But you were a specialist.

FOGARTY: I was a specialist swimmer.

CRAWFORD: Did you win competitions? 

FOGARTY: Yes, I often won surf races. And they used to get me to swim in the belt for the team competitions. I always swam in the belt, because I was quickest. I had good success. Two of us from Oreti swam in the New Zealand belt finals as juniors in Wellington. And then as a senior I swam in Gisborne in the belt finals. And the belt final, it was the event that was the most prestigious of the champs.

CRAWFORD: How did you fare in that belt competition? 

FOGARTY: Oh, I got sixth in the race. it was very cutthroat. They had eight buoys - eight places per heat - and a number of heats. In this case, in Gisborne they had seven heats, eight people in each heat. The first of each heat swam the final. 

CRAWFORD: That’s a lot of competition to get to the final.

FOGARTY: Huge amount of competition. It was sort of prestigious, the whole thing. 

CRAWFORD: And you were swimming against the nation's finest swimmers?

FOGARTY: That’s right, we were. Olympians and all sorts of people. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. At 16 there was a switch from school to apprenticeship, and that coincided roughly with the Surf Life Saving Club. 

FOGARTY: Not only was it swimming in the surf club, we even had a basketball team in the winter. [laughs]. We were all together. 

CFAWFORD: Basketball? Not netball?

FOGARTY: Basketball.

CRAWFORD: Do you know who invented the game of basketball? 

FOGARTY: No.

CRAWFORD: A Canadian! A guy named Naismith back in the 1890s. 

FOGARTY: Right.

CRAWFORD: After your transition to swimming and Surf Life Saving at the age of 16, what was the next significant change in coastal activities? Either in location, or the amount of time, or the activities that you were doing?

FOGARTY: The next thing was in the surf club. We had an inspirational coach arrive from Gisborne. He decided that the six-man team, which was the sort of team that the club had as their top team, would swim Foveaux Strait. We trained out in the Oreti River every morning, and we swam out at night, maybe a kilometre off the beach and then back in. The canoe would follow us. We would swim out, and then race back. This used to happen on a regular basis. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly what distance were these training swims? 

FOGARTY: We would swim about three kilometres an hour. If you went out three-quarters of an hour, and then back, you’d do about four or five kilometres. 

CRAWFORD: It was swimming out, and racing back?

FOGARTY: That’s what we used to do, because that was the best way to do it. 

CRAWFORD: What year was that? 

FOGARTY: It was '62. Because the first swim of Foveaux Strait was in '63. The six of us on the six-man team in Oreti were the participants. John van Leeuwen, a Dutchman, he was older than we were, slightly. And he was the best person to stand the cold water. So, he was the one picked to swim across the Strait. We used to swim with him for say, 20 minutes or half an hour, and then we’d change over all the time. So that day I spent probably the most time in the water with him. They tell me that I swam about 12 nautical miles that day. Accompanying John. 

CRAWFORD: Looking at the map you have here, the course was pretty much due south from about Flathill around Bluff, and then mostly due west. 

FOGARTY: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: So, it wasn’t a straight line. 

FOGARTY: Straight line distance, but because of the tides it was on angles.

CRAWFORD: What do you reckon was the total distance that John swam crossing the Strait? 

FOGARTY: He swam 23 kilometres. Is that right? It might not be.

CRAWFORD: In how many hours? 

FOGARTY: Thirteen and a bit. 

CRAWFORD: And you swam approximately 13 of those 23 kilometres with him, and there were others who were swimming the other parts of that?

FOGARTY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Wow. 

FOGARTY: There was a problem, because John and I were swimming the same speed. A lot of them were swimming slightly less, and we had to keep the action going. 

CRAWFORD: When John and your team were swimming, I'm presuming there was a support boat with you? 

FOGARTY: There was a support boat. the [Ararua??] was the boat, it was the pilot boat used by the people at Bluff wharf. One of the pilots came with us, and he used a sextant to take the shots so we knew exactly where we were. I’ve got those on a map.

CRAWFORD: So, there was one support boat on that trip. And that was the first crossing? 

FOGARTY: No. We had one crossing attempt about a week before, but it blew up so we couldn’t keep swimming. We were swimming through white tops. 

CRAWFORD: 1963 was the first completed attempt, it took 13 hours in total for John, and there was one support vessel. Did you have any type of suits on?

FOGARTY: No. To make it a genuine swim, you've got to be in your togs only. 

CRAWFORD: A 'genuine swim.' Does this kind of carry down as tradition from the English Channel swims?

FOGARTY: That’s right, English Channel swims. You can’t use a wetsuit and be recognized as a swimmer. 

CRAWFORD: Your team accompanied John in 1963 for his swim. But there were also a series of other swims, after John's first crossing - were you involved in any way with those swims? 

FOGARTY: Yes, I was. I organised the course, I organized the boat. And just about got a divorce from my Wife, for spending so much time ... [laughs]

CRAWFORD: How many swims? 

FOGARTY: Only two. There were two other surf club swimmers that swam it. Mike Quinlivan in 1985, he was the next one. and then Todd Utteridge in 1989. 

CRAWFORD: That’s a total of three successful crossings?

FOGARTY: They were the three successful swims from Oreti Surf Life Saving Club members. 

CRAWFORD: Were there other attempts? 

FOGARTY: There have been other attempts, some controversial. But I wasn’t on those. Although we did run a relay by our Master Swimmers from Stewart Island to Bluff, to raise money for the new pool. I was club president at the time. 

CRAWFORD: This was obviously a passion of yours. 

FOGARTY: It was! 

CRAWFORD: Through all of this time, were there any other activities of significant time that you spent on or around the coastal waters? Did you do any sailing or boating? 

FOGARTY: Not until I got married. And then after that, I bought a section at Stewart Island, and we built a little sleepout house.

CRAWFORD: What year was that, roughly? 

FOGARTY: About ‘68, '69. 

CRAWFORD: That was when got married? 

FOGARTY: No, I got married after the first swim - I got married in ’65. And about four or five years later, we went to Stewart Island, and built a little place. And then we had children, and I used to take a trailer solo across [laughs], not with the kids in it, but myself sometimes. At night sometimes when the weather was right. 

CRAWFORD: When you had the place on Stewart Island, where was it? Halfmoon Bay? Paterson Inlet?

FOGARTY: In Leask's Bay. Same place that I went when I was a kid [laughs] 

CRAWFORD: An embayment off Halfmoon Bay.

FOGARTY: It wasn’t exactly the same place, but down the hill. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly, how much time would you have been spending on Stewart Island from 1968 on? 

FOGARTY: We probably went for three weeks a year, holiday time. 

CRAWFORD: When you were there, what kinds of things would you have been doing? 

FOGARTY: We used to go boating, fishing - mainly fishing. And sometimes we would take the boat over, and spend the night on it. 

CRAWFORD: Over to where? 

FOGARTY: Paterson Inlet. We used to go to Sailors Rest, which is a little bay that’s hidden from the weather. Then after I got married, I went Muttonbirding with the Smiths. 

CRAWFORD: Which Muttonbird Islands were those? 

FOGARTY: They were Crown islands, out off Port Adventure. 

CRAWFORD: So, on the east side of Stewart Island. That Muttonbirding experience, was that kind of a one-year thing? Or did you go several years? 

FOGARTY: No, I only went one year. I was away for ten days, and we lived on the boat. But the Muttonbirders went to the island; they used to live on the islands, but we actually lived on the boat. My Father-In-Law used to go Muttonbirding, and they used to take him. They’d take all the family, and he had to read to the children to keep them out of mischief. [laughs]

CRAWFORD: You had mentioned during holidays at Stewart Island, you would do some boating and fishing?

FOGARTY: That’s right.

CRAWFORD: Where would you be doing most of your fishing when you were there? 

FOGARTY: Oh, we just fished out of Halfmoon Bay really. We’d go out and catch enough food for the night, and that was all we did. We used to take the boat, and do a lot of diving for Scallops. 

CRAWFORD: Free-diving for Scallops? 

FOGARTY: Yes. In Paterson Inlet. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever do any Pāua diving? 

FOGARTY: We used to. There was a Ringaringa Beach, and we used to just walk along with the kids at night, and get enough Pāua to have a meal. 

CRAWFORD: With regards to the fishing, was that line-fishing? 

FOGARTY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Did you ever use setnets or anything like that? 

FOGARTY: No. 

CRAWFORD: Did you spend any time further up the coast, on either side? Or was it pretty much Halfmoon Bay and Paterson Inlet? 

FOGARTY: When I was younger it was. But then I had a friend who went fishing, and I used to go sometimes with him. 

CRAWFORD: He was a commercial fisherman? 

FOGARTY: He was a commercial fisherman, and he was a Pāua diver. He was based out of Invercargill.

CRAWFORD: Where did he fish? 

FOGARTY: He fished mainly for flatfish with a net, and he used to go along the shore of Oreti. And he also fished along the shore around past Tuatapere.

CRAWFORD: So, Te Waewae Bay? 

FOGARTY: Yeah, Te Waewae Bay. 

CRAWFORD: And you went out with him on occasion or ...

FOGARTY: Yeah, just on occasion. 

CRAWFORD: When you had the place on Stewart Island, and you spent roughly three weeks there for holidays, was that at the expense of time that you would have spent in the Invercargill estuary?

FOGARTY: No. I was older then, and the estuary had been dredged. It used to be quite wide open to the sea, but they dredged it and they built it up, they reclaimed a huge amount of land. It spoiled the whole thing, the estuary was then spoiled. And the yacht club left because there wasn’t enough water at half-tide to sail. So, basically it was destroyed. And the Council reclaimed it. 

CRAWFORD: And that pretty much caused the displacement of everybody that was using the estuary?

FOGARTY: It did. There were fishing boats that used to come up, they used to park off where the old wharf was. I think there were about 16 boats there. And to get your Oarsman’s Badge you had to scull and row around 'the fleet' as they called it. But that all disappeared when they started to reclaim the land. Spoiled the whole thing. 

CRAWFORD: So, from 1968 on, if you were boating or fishing - it was mostly at Stewart Island?

FOGARTY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: From 1968 on, what was the next significant development that would have changed either coastal locations or activities?

FOGARTY: Oh, I haven’t mentioned that we used to go fishing from the surf club. 

CRAWFORD: That was in the estuary? 

FOGARTY: No, no. This was out at Oreti. Because we were all so used to go out there training and swimming, we would often go fishing there as well. It was only on decent days, and we would paddle the surf canoe out, go fishing for Cod, and then paddle back. Or we’d set longlines, and we’d catch all sorts of fish. 

CRAWFORD: That would have been back in your twenties? 

FOGARTY: Yes. Before that as well. Because we used to go fishing from when I was about 18, a year after I joined the surf club. We got a better boat ... they used to have a canvas canoe, and we used to paddle that out. I never went out in that. But then we got a decent canoe, and we used to go out. It was quite safe, we thought. We used to go out about three kilometres off the beach.

CRAWFORD: Ok. In terms of your role with the Surf Life Saving Club, did you carry on in that active capacity through your thirties and forties? 

FOGARTY: Yes, I was president at one time, and then I used to be coach and I did Surf Bronze Medallion. I've trained a lot of surfers for getting their Bronze, which was, you had to know a lot of other things, like how to look after a patient.

CRAWFORD: So, you were are still spending a significant amount of time at the Oreti club?

FOGARTY: That’s right. And I had three sons that were all in the surf club, and they all had their Surf Bronze. I had an oldest daughter had a Surf Bronze, so we were a surfing family. 

CRAWFORD: Yes, very much so. And that would have continued until at some point you started to pull back a little bit from your Surf Life Saving?

FOGARTY: I did, because when the family got married and left, then my role was diminished, I was really in there to look after my kids, and see what I could do to help out. I enjoyed it, and they did too. We’d go on trips, and I’d be the chaperone coach. And then once they went away to university, all of that stopped.

CRAWFORD: Roughly when was that? 1980?

FOGARTY: Yeah, it would be. I was there quite a long time. Yeah, 1985. And then I was in business of course, and I didn’t have as much time. But I still kept in touch with the surf club and I used to go - and still go -surfing, body surfing mainly. We are sort of a surfing family. Last Christmas we were in Aussie, not the one past but the one before, and every morning the family would go surfing. 

CRAWFORD: When you say 'surfing', what do you mean? 

FOGARTY: I mean body surfing. I did use a board, but I wasn’t a board person. I used to be a swimming person. So, mainly catching waves - same as board surfing but without a board. 

CRAWFORD: When your kids went through this, were they board surfing or body surfing? 

FOGARTY: Body surfing. 

CRAWFORD: Still mostly in the domain of swimming. 

FOGARTY: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Once the kids were off to school or whatever, I presume you reduced the amount of time that you were actively at the club and at the beach?

FOGARTY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: During that time period, was there a change in your holiday activity at Stewart Island?

FOGARTY: We had a house at the front of our section that my wife’s parenst lived in. They died, and we then shifted the house to Te Anau and I took the boat up there as well. 

CRAWFORD: When was that move? 

FOGARTY: End of the ‘80s, yeah.

CRAWFORD: And for that time period you were much more inland?

FOGARTY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Did you still go back to Oreti Beach every once in a while?

FOGARTY: I would still go surfing. I still go surfing, but less frequently. 

CRAWFORD: And your time on Stewart Island, that wrapped up around the late-80s?

FOGARTY: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Any other major changes in your coastal experiences?

FOGARTY: Well, the surf club ran the first triathlons. Myself and another chap organized them to raise money for the surf club. And because of the swimming in it, and I quite enjoyed the swimming, we ended up with the triathlon family, so I then started competing in triathlons instead of the Surf Life Club. I was spending most of my time in training and racing the triathlons.

CRAWFORD: That was roughly when? 

FOGARTY: That was from 1985 right through to 2005. 

CRAWFORD: So, 20 years of triathlon? 

FOGARTY: 20 years of triathlon. I raced [pushbike??] for 25 years. And I did six Ironmen, all together. Represented New Zealand twice at the world triathlon champs. 

CRAWFORD: Wow. At what age? 

FOGARTY: [laughs] At the age of 60. It went better when I was 60, than when I was younger. Well, I never did that sort of thing when I was younger. 

CRAWFORD: If I did the math right ... if you started in '85, and you were born in ’39, you started at the age of 45? 

FOGARTY: I did. I started at the age of 45.

CRAWFORD: Ok! [laughs]

FOGARTY: I had children who were racing as well. It was a swimming family. One year we went to [Arotiand??] - they used to have a triathlon every Easter. We went up there, and my Daughter won the Women’s, my Son won the Men’s, and I got second in the vets. [laughs]

CRAWFORD: To be clear, when you’re doing triathlon, that’s running, biking and swimming.

FOGARTY: That’s right.

CRAWFORD: Ok. In your life history, the triathlons take us to about 2005. From 2005 to now, the past decade, if you were to summarize the time you spend on or around the water, what do you do now? 

FOGARTY: Well, I’ve got a boat. I’ve had that boat for 12 years. It's a bigger boat, actually I’ve got two boats. I’ve got a bigger one, unfortunately, I’ve still been working and I haven’t had the time to go sailing as much as I would have. 

CRAWFORD: When you do go sailing, what size of vessel do you sail on? 

FOGARTY: Its 9.5 metres long. 

CRAWFORD: Where do you sail out of? 

FOGARTY: Out of Bluff. The Bluff Yacht Club. 

CRAWFORD: Where do you sail when you sail? 

FOGARTY: We sail to Stewart Island.

CRAWFORD: Around the island?

FOGARTY: No, we don’t go around. We only go there. 

CRAWFORD: Halfmoon Bay? 

FOGARTY: Yes, that’s right. 

CRAWFORD: Paterson Inlet?

FOGARTY: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Is that pretty much it? 

FOGARTY: Pretty much, yes. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly, how many times a year would you go out sailing coastal waters over the past ten years?

FOGARTY: I don’t go a lot now. Once or twice a year. Although that may be untrue, because in the wintertime last year we went out ... I’ve got a friend, who was my best man, he's the Chief Engineer on a boat. He was also on the Stewart Island Ferry for ten years. When I retired, we’d go out fishing, just out Foveaux Strait. 

CRAWFORD: A couple of times a year? 

FOGARTY: Oh, three or four. We did last year.

CRAWFORD: I'm guessing that probably brings us to the present.

FOGARTY: Yes.

2. EXPOSURE TO MĀORI/LOCAL/SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS 

CRAWFORD: To what extent has Māori culture and knowledge affected your understanding of the marine ecosystem?

FOGARTY: Mine’s quite high, because Anne’s ancestry is Māori, and I've had a lot of contact with Māori. I had some Māori knowledge about what to fish, what time to go, and how to fish. You'd learn when you fish for [Hāpuku??], they’d always have one fish on the line. How to use two lines always, and leave one down so that you've got another one on the next one. And then you’d pull the first one up. All those little things. That was all Māori influence. 

CRAWFORD: When stories were told from their perspective, you would have been, not just comfortable - but you had a degree of immersion?

FOGARTY: It was. When I went away with Phillip for ten days, Muttonbirding, that was with his Uncle as well. His Uncle had fished for 36 years without a stop. Anne had an Aunt, when she got married she lived at Pegasus - where they had the fish factory. 

CRAWFORD: Port Pegasus? Was there ever any account on that side of things about the relationship between the fish factory and Sharks? 

FOGARTY: No. Not that I recall. When we dived down at Pegasus for Scallops and Oysters, we never had a problem. Never heard of anything, no one fishing ever said anything. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. In terms of science contribution to your understanding of marine ecosystems, what level of contribution would that have been?

FOGARTY: No, I haven’t had much that way. 

3. WHITE POINTER DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE

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

FOGARTY: My first recollection was the photo in the paper of a man holding the jaws of a Shark up. You could have been swallowed to the size of the Shark. It was in the newspaper down here.

CRAWFORD: The Invercargill newspaper - the Southland Times? 

FOGARTY: Yes, Southland Times News, as it was at the time.

CRAWFORD: Do you recall how old you were, roughly? 

FOGARTY: I was going to school. Probably I would have been about 13 or 14. 

CRAWFORD: Do you remember anything about the story? 

FOGARTY: I knew who was holding the Shark jaw up, because he was from the fish shop that I served an apprenticeship next door. 

CRAWFORD: What was his name? 

FOGARTY: [Bertonshire??] was the person who held it up. Now he’ll be dead for sure. 

CRAWFORD: Was it a Shark that he had caught? 

FOGARTY: No, no. It was a Shark that the shop's boat ... I’m pretty sure it was the one I used to go out fishing at Bluff, the 'Star of the Sea'. I’m pretty sure that was the boat that caught the Shark. 

CRAWFORD: They would have caught it out in Foveaux Strait someplace? 

FOGARTY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: I think you said that they fished off Stewart Island sometimes?

FOGARTY: Yes. They went across to the Bishops.

CRAWFORD: But that particular Shark could have come from anyplace in Foveaux Strait?

FOGARTY: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: After that picture in the newspaper, do you recall hearing from the old-timers anything about Sharks out in the Strait or anything like that?

FOGARTY: They did. Some of the fishermen, there were two places they wouldn’t go. I still can’t quite remember where they talked about, but Sharks were a factor, and fishermen didn’t go where the Sharks were. 

CRAWFORD: When you talk about 'the fishermen' do you mean commercial fishermen? 

FOGARTY: Commercial fishermen. 

CRAWFORD: There was some type of avoidance by at least some of the commercial fishermen, because of the Sharks?

FOGARTY: There was, yeah.

CRAWFORD: There are several different types of Sharks out there. Did you get the impression that it was the White Pointers in particular? 

FOGARTY: No, I didn’t. Because the other Shark that was predominant was the Thresher Shark. I’m pretty sure that if you go through the papers, it was a Thresher Shark whose jaws were held up.

CRAWFORD: And that would have been a 'shark'.

FOGARTY: Well, a Shark was a Shark. 

CRAWFORD: They didn’t necessarily have this species or that?

FOGARTY: No, no, no. 

CRAWFORD: But a fisherman would know the difference.

FOGARTY: A fisherman would know the difference, but I didn’t. I knew the difference between a Shark ... If I saw a Thresher Shark, I’d know the difference between that and an ordinary Shark. Yeah, so a Shark to me was a Shark. Whether it was a White Pointer or a Thresher. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. What was the first time that you recall hearing about or seeing a White Pointer specifically? Have you ever seen a White Pointer in the wild? 

FOGARTY:  No. I’ve seen Thresher Sharks, but never seen a White Pointer. There were White Pointers ... we used to set longlines out at Oreti Beach. And we would catch a number of Sharks. But they weren’t very big. 

CRAWFORD: If they weren’t very big, it's possible that they were other kinds of Shark - or that they were actually juvenile White Pointers. But you don’t have any recollection of the particular kinds of Sharks that you were catching?

FOGARTY: No.

CRAWFORD: Let's not worry too much about that. 

FOGARTY: All I know is that they were Sharks. 

CRAWFORD: I did an interview with one of the commercial fishermen up at Curio Bay, he said, "Steve, you have to remember, back in the day, they were all just Sharks!’. 

FOGARTY: That’s exactly it. We used to set longlines, and that’s how we caught them. You’d find that they were all wound up in the line, a painful thing. 

CRAWFORD: When was the first time you remember specifically hearing about White Pointers in this region? Do you remember? 

FOGARTY: A White Pointer? Oh, a number of years ago. Before John’s swim in ’63, we knew that the Sharks were in Foveaux Strait, and we knew that they were White Pointers. How we knew that, I don’t know.

CRAWFORD: At least by 1963 they were on your radar screen. Did the team have any type of preparation or Shark plan in place? Did you have Shark spotters while you were crossing?

FOGARTY: We had two Shark spotters. And we had a .303, a rifle. 

CRAWFORD: That rifle was there ...

FOGARTY: Just in case.

CRAWFORD: Just in case a Shark got too close?

FOGARTY: That’s right. 

CRAWFORD: When you say you had two spotters, does that mean two people on one boat? Or one spotter on each of two boats? 

FOGARTY: No. What we did was, somebody sat up in the wheelhouse and kept an eye out. 

CRAWFORD: Their particular job was to keep an eye out for any hazards, but in particular Sharks?

FOGARTY: Yeah, anything. 

CRAWFORD: But also to look for fins, specifically?

FOGARTY: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: On John’s swim, was there any indication that there were Sharks around? 

FOGARTY: Well, there were two people - I was one of them - sitting in the wheelhouse of the boat, and we saw a Shark of some sort, we didn’t know what kind. It just came close to the boat, kind of nosey at the boat. Everybody was looking the other way at the swimmer. And then it just disappeared again. We talked about it quickly. We were going to tell everyone, but then we decided not to, because we spent so much time training. It was such a nice day. It was probably the wrong thing to think of, but the chance to get another attempt at the swim - it was the last one we’d get because of the weather. We just said nothing. 

CRAWFORD: The animal didn’t appear to be overly interested? 

FOGARTY: No, he was just nosey. 

CRAWFORD: It wasn’t swimming quickly, or doing anything alarming?

FOGARTY: No, he just went and looked at the boat, then just drifted away. 

CRAWFORD: Total time that you would have seen this animal - how long would have been? 

FOGARTY: Oh, ten seconds. 

CRAWFORD: Was the animal completely submerged? Or was the dorsal fin out above the surface? 

FOGARTY: No, the dorsal fin wasn’t out. We could see him underwater because it was quite clear. But it was a silver thing, sort of. It wasn’t a fish that we knew of, so we thought it was a Shark. He came up, just about near the surface, up about sort of level with the keel of the boat, or a little bit higher. And then sort of had a look at us, and then disappeared. 

CRAWFORD: 'Looked' as in rolled over? 

FOGARTY: Rolled over. 

CRAWFORD: With one eye pointing at you?

FOGARTY: Pointed at us, and then just drifted off underneath. 

CRAWFORD: Glided. No circling behaviour?

FOGARTY: No. 

CRAWFORD: There and gone in ten seconds? 

FOGARTY: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Do you remember any other distinguishing feature about that Shark? In terms of coloration, or anything like that? 

FOGARTY: It looked at us, and then just sort of twisted slightly, and just dropped away. 

CRAWFORD: If you had to guess the size of the animal? 

FOGARTY: Oh, it wouldn’t be any taller than myself. 

CRAWFORD: So, six foot - something like that? 

FOGARTY: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Fairly small for a White Pointer. But it was open surface water.

FOGARTY: Fairly small, a small Shark. But it was a Shark.

CRAWFORD: Were there any other observations of Sharks by anybody else on John’s swim? 

FOGARTY: No. But a lot of our swimming was at night-time too.

CRAWFORD: Which means that John and the team would have been passing within ten kilometres of the Northern Titi Islands - swimming at night? 

FOGARTY: Yeah. We aimed for the centre of the hills, Mount Anglem and Little Mount Anglem, because we could see there was a gap between the two. We were navigating, trying to keep that lined up. So what we did is, we were still swimming towards that, but as we drifted down, we came back up, we were still drifting towards it. Hence the funny lines on the map there. Because of the tide changes.

CRAWFORD: On the other two crossings that you were involved with, did the support teams have the same types of provisions - in terms of spotters and a rifle onboard? 

FOGARTY: No. No spotters, no rifle. 

CRAWFORD: Just a straight swim?

FOGARTY: Just a straight swim. 

CRAWFORD: To your recollection, on those other two swims, were any Sharks seen? 

FOGARTY: No. 

CRAWFORD: On the other swims, the ones that you were not part of,  did you ever hear that there were any types of interactions with Sharks seen on those swims? 

FOGARTY: No. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let's get back to areas where Sharks were known to congregate. You had already indicated previously that among some of the commercial fishermen, that there were some areas they avoided. But you don’t recall the specific locations? 

FOGARTY: All around the back of Bluff Hill they avoided.

CRAWFORD: When you say the 'back of Bluff Hill' what do you mean? 

FOGARTY: Where the freezerworks was. They told us that there were Sharks there. 

CRAWFORD: And they didn’t want to catch the Sharks? Or they didn’t want interactions with the Sharks?

FOGARTY: They mainly didn’t want the interactions with Sharks. 

CRAWFORD: Do you recall people telling you that Sharks had attacked boats or had negative interactions that way? 

FOGARTY: Not there, no. 

CRAWFORD: But the fisherman saying that they didn’t want to fish there because of the Sharks, I'm guessing they were avoiding the problem. 

FOGARTY: I think they would lose their gear, some of them. I know they caught them. But, they didn’t want to lose their gear.

CRAWFORD: Setnets?

FOGARTY: Mainly they were line fishing. 

CRAWFORD: So, they would have lines out, and either fish taken off their lines, or they might hook one of the Sharks - they might end up cutting the line, or whatever?

FOGARTY: That’s right. That was the deal with the fishermen. 

CRAWFORD: Tell me about the freezer works. It would have been in operation before your time?

FOGARTY: Oh, yes. The freezing works was about 1920-odd. 

CRAWFORD: Maybe twenty years before you were born?

FOGARTY: Thirty years, at least. I went there as a young guy, 15 or 16 - whatever it was when I left school. And it was well known ... Anne’s Uncle worked at the freezing works from when it opened. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of the freezerwork's effluent, do you remember the discharge into the bay? 

FOGARTY: Yes, I do. 

CRAWFORD: Would it have been in pulses, or more continuous?

FOGARTY: It wasn’t all the time. You’d have the floods of discharge. What would happen is that you had clean up times ... I worked there for about three months. Every day you’d have a gang of people who would have to hose the works down, sterilize them. What they did was use steam hoses, and everything went down the chute and went straight out to sea. 

CRAWFORD: There was a collecting system of troughs?

FOGARTY: I don’t even know what it was, but we used to hose it all down.

CRAWFORD: Down it goes. And ultimately ends being dumped directly off Ocean Beach - onto the west side of the spit?

FOGARTY: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever see the discharge? 

FOGARTY: I have, yes. 

CRAWFORD: Different people have told me that it was a significant amount of ...

FOGARTY: It was quite a lot of material in it. But it didn’t discolor the water that much. Although you could tell "there’s blood there." 

CRAWFORD: Were there bits and pieces as well? 

FOGARTY: No, not really. Because they used to render most of the stuff. Mainly it was a lot of blood, because all that went down the drain. It would be fat; a lot of fat, because the hassle was at the freezing works, it was sort of fat everywhere. And you used the steam hoses to do the floors and everything. All the walls, the chains, everything, because it was all difficult. You had to keep the place clean, otherwise it would be a hassle. And those were the days we we used to use black singlets. [laughs]

CRAWFORD: What's a singlet? 

FOGARTY: Singlet, you know - an undershirt.

CRAWGORD: Ok?

FOGARTY: Yeah, but they were all black.

CRAWFORD: A black t-shirt?

FOGARTY: Yes, except they didn’t have arms. You just had over the shoulder. And then jeans. That was the job.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Were the singlets company issued? 

FOGARTY: Company issued, yes. 

CRAWFORD: Why was it a black singlet?

FOGARTY: Well, that was the tradition. 

CRAWFORD: Just the was the way it was done. Ok. Roughly, how frequently would these kinds of cleaning episodes happen at the freezer works? Every day? 

FOGARTY: Every day, yes. I was a boy there, and I was trimming on the end of the chain. After work we had to wait for another hour before we left, and we spent all that time cleaning up. We hosed the place down with these high-pressure steam hoses. Clean it all up, ready for next day. 

CRAWFORD: This was a daily thing. You’d have this pulse of blood and fat discharged off Ocean Beach. Obviously, depending on how much the plant was processing. 

FOGARTY: What part of the day it was too. 

CRAWFORD: Right. Depending on what part of the season, what part of the day. It would vary over time. Do you ever remember seeing any Sharks out at Ocean Beach?

FOGARTY: No, I didn’t see any Sharks. But I was told they were there. 

CRAWFORD: You were told they were there by people who had seen them? 

FOGARTY: Yes. By the fishermen.

CRAWFORD: Do you remember any of their stories about that place? 

FOGARTY: The only story I know was one Anne's grandfather told. Not from any land observations. People wouldn’t have gone down there anyways, I don’t think. 

CRAWFORD: Because it was a discharge?

FOGARTY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Why would you hang around a sewage outflow?

FOGARTY: You wouldn't swim there, but you could have got shellfish. Even then, I can remember diving in Bluff harbour at Stirling Point - and the Pāua there were sort of crumbly, the shells. And smelly. They were gill-feeders of something, filter-feeders, and they were contaminated food.

CRAWFORD: That was at Bluff Harbour, on the other side?

FOGARTY: On the other side.

CRAWFORD: What would have contaminated the Pāua at Stirling Point?

FOGARTY: I would say the huge amount of discharge coming around. Bluff Harbour has got a huge flow of tide flow coming in it.

CRAWFORD: So, if the discharge is over at Ocean Beach, you think that some of it was going to come over to the mouth of the harbour? 

FOGARTY: Oh, it will. Because the thing is that the water travels from west to east. So, you’ve got a larger volume of water coming from this way, and you’ve got it going that way. And it's not far to come, because you’ve got a tide flow coming round here.

CRAWFORD: You think an eddy would have taken the discharge back in to Bluff Harbour? 

FOGARTY: Well, the water was going up there. A huge amount of water comes in and out. 

CRAWFORD: Tidal flush into Bluff Harbour, and then back out?

FOGARTY: Its running at about ... I don’t know how many knots it runs at. But you have a strong tidal flow there. I mean, against the tide it's difficult to get boats ... they're going really, really slow. I’d say it's probably five knots on the flood.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Do you remember any other stories about White Pointers any place along the southern shoreline, in Foveaux Strait, or anyplace around Stewart Island?

FOGARTY: I heard about White Pointers out at Bishop’s, where we’d go fishing. We heard there were Sharks there, we heard they were caught there.

CRAWFORD: What about the Titi Islands? 

FOGARTY: No, I didn’t know.

CRAWFORD: What about Leask Bay, Halfmoon Bay? 

FOGARTY: No Sharks in Leask Bay, it's only a small bay. They could have been cruising along the outside, but I never heard of them.

CRAWFORD: You never heard of them in Halfmoon Bay? 

FOGARTY: Not at that time. 

CRAWFORD: So, we’re talking ...

FOGARTY: I have heard since.

CRAWFORD: But in the 1940s, when you were young, you don’t remember anyone seeing or saying anything about Sharks in Halfmoon Bay? 

FOGARTY: No. 

CRAWFORD: Later, in the '60s when you were newly married, and you bought a property in Leask Bay, you were there three weeks out of the year and if someone had seen a Shark ...

FOGARTY: We would have known about it.

CRAWFORD: You would have heard about it.

FOGARTY: Oh, absolutely.

CRAWFORD: And you don’t remember anything like that in the '70s and '80s?

FOGARTY: No.

CRAWFORD: Paterson Inlet, back in the day? 

FOGARTY: No. 

CRAWFORD: No recollection of any kind?

FOGARTY: No. We used to go out Pāua diving, just for a meal. And we used to go Crayfishing there too. We wouldn’t have been diving if we thought there were Sharks. 

CRAWFORD: Right. And your diving was ...

FOGARTY: Just freediving

CRAWFORD: But it was mostly in Halfmoon Bay and Paterson Inlet? 

FOGARTY: That’s right. 

CRAWFORD: Was there ever any indication that the mouth of an estuary, the mouth of a river, was an area that would attract Sharks of any kind? 

FOGARTY: Well, people had said to me that Sharks were attracted where we used to Flounder. And that was at the outlet of the estuary. Oreti Beach, right down the end, there’s two channels there; one on the south side, one on the north side. There’s a spit there. And how we used to Flounder, was when the tide was coming in, we’d have the net - you didn’t have to pull it, you used to go along with the tide and then you would swing it in. And then when the tide reversed, when it was going out, it reversed your net.

CRAWFORD: Was this a seine? A beach seine? 

FOGARTY: Yeah, a 30 metre net. Not very long. 

CRAWFORD: But the type of thing that has a pouch in the middle, and you pull it around, and anything that gets captured in the pouch, that’s your harvest?

FOGARTY: Yeah, we used to do that. It was really simple there, because you didn’t have to pull the net. A lot of people net on Oreti Beach, but they’ve got to pull the net, because they’ve got to travel over where the fish are. But with the tide coming in, the Flounders come up and eat Toheroas - the little shellfish. And they come up on the flat, that's right up in the warm water, in the shallows. Then they go back out again. And it’s a perfect place to catch Flatfish. 

CRAWFORD: And other people had said that Sharks were known to be around the estuaries?

FOGARTY: Well, I was told they were. But we never took any notice.

CRAWFORD: You never saw them?

FOGARTY: No. The water wasn’t deep enough, we didn’t think. 

CRAWFORD: Do you recall any instances with Sharks that had been aggressive, or had attacked people in this general region? 

FOGARTY: Not down here. I do know about the ones that were in St. Clair and St. Kilda beaches. 

CRAWFORD: You had heard about those attacks?

FOGARTY: Well, I knew the person. One of the people taken was a friend of mine. Les Jordan.

CRAWFORD: Was he a Surf Life Saver? 

FOGARTY: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: And you heard about that attack on Les?

FOGARTY: Yes, right away. 

CRAWFORD: Through the Surf Life Saving Club? 

FOGARTY: Oh yes, yes. 

CRAWFORD: What did you hear about the nature of that attack? 

FOGARTY: He was attacked on the beach. There were people out boarding, and he was out swimming, and he was taken out and his leg was severed. They got him back on the beach, pulled him back on the board, then he died on the beach.

CRAWFORD: Do you remember any other details that would have passed along with the story when you heard it? Like time of day or anything like that? 

FOGARTY: Yeah, it was night-time, dusk. That’s really all I know about it. When the Shark attacked, they went to rescue him and brought him in. But he died on the beach. The other one was the skindiver in Aramoana. We were told by people who were looking after us at the time, because I was young, that the Sharks travelled from Fiordland, around the bottom, through Foveaux Strait, and headed on up through past Dunedin. 

CRAWFORD: That was knowledge people had from back in the day? 

FOGARTY: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Up the east coast of South Island - up to the Otago Peninsula?

FOGARTY: Probably got as far as Moeraki or somewhere, and then travelled off. But there was never anything in Christchurch. Not that we knew of. But there was down here. 

CRAWFORD: Otago Peninsula, based on common knowledge that you were aware of, obviously had White Pointers?

FOGARTY: It did, yes.

CRAWFORD: In terms of this region here, Foveaux Strait, Te Waewae Bay, Oreti Beach, any of the coastal waters around the southern end of South Island, or Stewart Island. Have you heard of any attacks down here? 

FOGARTY: No.

CRAWFORD: They could have been here all the time, and yet not on your radar?

FOGARTY: Could have been here, but we wouldn’t know. We see a lot of fish here in the sea. Now there are many other fish feeders as well. Fish aren’t as prevalent here now as they were. And not at Stewart  Island, because the fishermen have really fished them hard.

CRAWFORD: In terms of White Pointer abundance, some people think there is some kind of increasing trend. But the other thing that makes it difficult to put it into context, is there are so many more people now.

FOGARTY: There’s more people, yes. And there’s more boats.

CRAWFORD: On top of all that, it's also quite possible that the behaviour of the animals is changing. 

FOGARTY: I think it is actually, because there’s a lot more rubbish fired around.

CRAWFORD: What do you mean by 'rubbish'? 

FOGARTY: I mean food off the boats. There’s a lot of small boats, and there’s a lot of fish cleaned at sea. Before, you’d have fisherman, and they’d only go to one place to clean their fish on the way back. 

CRAWFORD: Was that the case for the Bluff fishermen? 

FOGARTY: Yeah, they used to do that. You’d see the lot of Seagulls following them in. 

CRAWFORD: They would be cleaning on the way back to port. Were there particular places, outside the harbour or anyplace that you recall, where they would anchor, or maybe drifting while they cleaned their fish? 

FOGARTY: No. At the bottom of Stewart Island there were, like at Pegasus.

CRAWFORD: When you were at Stewart Island, were there places where the boats would moor, and they would finish off their cleaning or whatever? 

FOGARTY: Yeah, because of the weather mainly. 

5. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS

CRAWFORD: You live in the region, and I ask people here if they have opinions they want to share about the effects of the White Pointer cage tour dive operations. Are you familiar with those operations?

FOGARTY: I haven’t seen the cage dive operations, but I’ve seen the cages on the back of boats. 

CRAWFORD: You’ve heard about the operations? Either from people who have been on a cage dive, or you’ve heard from other sources? 

FOGARTY: Oh yes, I know exactly what it is. 

CRAWFORD: To your understanding, what is it that these people are doing with Shark cage diving? 

FOGARTY: Well, they’re teasing Sharks. 

CRAWFORD: Let's start with what they do. So, the boat heads out of Bluff, and across the Strait. Do you know where they go? 

FOGARTY: Yeah, over behind the Muttonbird Islands, off Halfmoon Bay. 

CRAWFORD: Edwards island in particular, now. They go to Edwards Island, they anchor, then what? 

FOGARTY: They have the cage set up at the back of the boat, and then people get in the cage with diving face masks, and then they berley for the Sharks to come around nosey, and see what’s going on. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of the berley, do you know what berley is? 

FOGARTY: They have cut-up meat.

CRAWFORD: Ground up, minced fish.

FOGARTY: Minced, yes. 

CRAWFORD: There are even restrictions in the permit on how big the pieces can be. They pump the mince into the water, and the Sharks follow the berley trail to the boat, and then the people go into the cage. They have their time looking at the Sharks. They are also allowed to have a head or a part of a fish tied onto a rope, and they throw that out onto the water so they can lead the Shark adjacent to the cage, rather than the Shark just circling around. That’s pretty much it. 

FOGARTY: Right.

CRAWFORD: Do you think that Shark cage diving has important and lasting effects on the White Pointers? 

FOGARTY: I think Sharks have a memory of where they go, and where they live, and where they breed. I think that what would happen if you feed them ... We have a bird feeder out there, the birds come to the feeder because they know there’s food in the feeder. I would say that the Sharks come back to the same place. They’ll have a memory of where they were. 

CRAWFORD: According to the conditions in the permit, they use a minced berley, so it’s the smell or taste of food rather than food itself. The idea that the animals are not able to chew the berley, they aren’t swallowing or eating the berley in that sense, it's just the smell. In terms of just the smell of food - do you think by just berleying would have important and lasting effects on the White Pointers?

FOGARTY: I think that a lasting effect would be where they’re cage diving, because the Sharks will have a memory of that. Whether the Sharks are influenced by the cage dives ... It means that there’s a bigger concentration of Sharks, if they are going to come back and breed there or whatever. I would be very reluctant to go skindiving in the position where there were Sharks in my vicinity, especially knowing that I had a friend once who was taken by a Shark 

CRAWFORD: Right. And that was in the absence of any berley or bait on a rope.

FOGARTY: Absence of anything.

CRAWFORD: Did you ever hear of anyone that had a possible explanation for why that attack took place at St. Kilda? 

FOGARTY: The explanation we were given, was that the Sharks were just travelling in that direction, and that they cruised the beach.

CRAWFORD: Wrong place at the wrong time. Getting back to the cage dive operations, do you think that if the animals are just smelling berley but not being fed - would that have important, lasting effects on the White Pointers?

FOGARTY: I don’t think the smell alone would encourage the Sharks to come every day if there was a cage dive. I think that something else would have to be done. I’m sure that the photograph I’ve showed you shows something more. You may say it's towing a piece of meat or something, but I think those animals would need to be fed to keep coming round.

CRAWFORD: That’s the picture you had on your wall at your shop. It’s a picture that shows a White Pointer, and there is a cage in the foreground. You said that this was taken from one of the operations off of Stewart Island. When was that? 

FOGARTY: Not last year, the year before. 

CRAWFORD: So, that would have been prior to the permit conditions actually prohibiting any feeding of the Sharks. And it shows a cage at the surface, the White Pointer, it has a rope, a line, and what is clearly a fish tied on the line that is inside the Shark's mouth. But remember that in context, that photo was taken prior to the permit conditions. So there was no constraint at the time. 

FOGARTY: That’s right.

CRAWFORD: Do you think that the shift from berley plus feeding in previous days, to only berley plus towed bait under the current permit conditions, would that have resulted in fewer Sharks coming around to the cage dive operations? 

FOGARTY: No. I think that the Sharks would be there anyhow. I’m sure that if they were breeding in that area, they’ll have a memory, they’ll come back. They know where to go.

CRAWFORD: Why do you bring up breeding? I think that’s the first time it has come up in our discussion

FOGARTY: Well, I would assume that they would come to a warmer part of the world, they come from a colder part to a warmer part for breeding. They need to breed somewhere.

CRAWFORD: Is this something based on your knowledge and thinking? The idea that the White Pointers come to Stewart Island for breeding? 

FOGARTY: I would think so. Just from things I’ve heard over the years, that’s all. 

CRAWFORD: If those animals are at the Titi Islands for mating - that kind of socialization - they could also still be feeding there as well. Do you know anything about what they feed on at the Titi Islands, or why that might be an important feeding ground for them? 

FOGARTY: No, I don’t. Never cut them open. 

CRAWFORD: But it's the idea that the White Pointers are there already, and that the Shark cage dive operations are coming to a place where they already are. If it was just berley, and the animals were already there and generally curious, they would check out the cage dive operations briefly, and then go back to whatever they were doing. Not necessarily an important lasting effect. Let me try reframing the question. Do you think that the White Pointers exposed to Shark cage diving - the smell of food in association with the boat and people in the cage - if those White Pointers should see just a boat elsewhere, those animals would respond to boats differently? Or that they would respond to people in the water differently? 

FOGARTY: I think that they would respond to boats differently.  And I think they would respond to people in the water differently. 

CRAWFORD: How would they respond to boats differently? 

FOGARTY: As far as I know, Sharks will follow a boat that is cleaning fish.

CRAWFORD: That was knowledge from back in the day?

FOGARTY: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Do you think that White Pointers that had been exposed to cage diving operations would then be more likely to approach or investigate boats, even if there was no smell of fish from the boat? 

FOGARTY: I think they would. Because the boat makes noise, the Shark will pick that up miles away.

CRAWFORD: And associate that sound with the smell of food? 

FOGARTY: Yes. Well, they must.

CRAWFORD: Do you think that White Pointers exposed to cage dive operations would be more likely to approach a Human on or under the water? 

FOGARTY: I would say that it would be more likely to approach a Human. 

CRAWFORD: Why do you say that? 

FOGARTY: I would say that they have the memory of a Human. I don’t understand the brain of the Shark, but if I was a Shark, put myself in their position, and if I get a meal and I was curious, and I heard a noise or a propeller, I would be interested to go and have a look. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. That’s in response to a boat. But what about response to a person in the water? 

FOGARTY: I think a person in the water would be like a Seal. If it was a Shark which had eaten a Seal, and if there were Seals in the area, and he’s taken a few pups, he may come back again.

CRAWFORD: Do you think if a White Pointer had been to a cage dive operation, would they be more likely to investigate a person in the water - at some other location, later in time? 

FOGARTY: I think they’d be more likely to investigate them. 

CRAWFORD: Why? 

FOGARTY: Because the Shark would be curious for food all the time, just like any animal. Its primary focus is to breed and to eat. You see, it's like birds and crops and that type of thing. Animals associate with certain things, and I’m sure that when a cage dive is attracting them, if there wasn’t some bonus at the end of it, they wouldn’t worry. The bonus is probably the person in the cage, if it was possible.

CRAWFORD: Some people wonder if the White Pointers even detect the Humans in the cage. Whether the aluminum cage could block the cues. Or perhaps they pick up some electromagnetic sense, but not necessarily see the people in the cage. Who knows what they actually perceive?

FOGARTY: They say their brains are pretty good. I remember hearing about a Shark that was tagged and went all the way to Chatham Islands or something, and came back. 

CRAWFORD: So, you know something about the tagging program. When did you hear about that kind of tagging? 

FOGARTY: Oh, just someone told me. Talking about Sharks, and they said it was quite a quick trip too. 

CRAWFORD: The tagging that DOC and NIWA scientists have done with White Pointers at Stewart island and elsewhere has shown that these animals move much, much greater distances than we had previously thought. And they can really motor. 

FOGARTY: Yeah, they go fast. 

CRAWFORD: And in some cases, they pretty much go on a straight line to get where they're going. It's not like a slow meander.

FOGARTY: Yes. They’re not unintelligent, their brain must be working.

CRAWFORD: It would appear they know where they are in the world. 

FOGARTY: They do. I guarantee they do. 

CRAWFORD: They are obviously sensing the world in ways that we do not really understand.

FOGARTY: And they can come back to the exact place on Stewart Island that they left. I don’t think that the Shark would have survived over the millions of years if it was silly. 

Copyright © 2019 John Fogarty and Steve Crawford