Paul Young

1. EXPERIENCE IN AOTEAROA/NZ COASTAL ENVIRONMENTS

CRAWFORD: What year were you born, Paul?

YOUNG: 1949. In Cromwell, central Otago.

CRAWFORD: What was your first recollection of spending a significant amount of time around New Zealand coastal waters?

YOUNG: Well, my brother was associated with commercial fishermen in Karitane, which is north of Dunedin. He was part-time Crayfishing at the time. I spent quite a lot of my childhood, younger years from about 12 to 15, living with him.

CRAWFORD: In Karitane?

YOUNG: Yes, in Karitane as circumstances arose. And then I had a serious accident and broke my neck. Spent some more years, with him keeping an eye on me. I was sort of reckless. 

CRAWFORD: Prior to that, when you were younger, did your family spend a significant amount of holiday time or visiting time around New Zealand coastal waters? Or was it mostly in the interior, around central Otago?

YOUNG: We moved from the interior when I was seven years old, and then we spent most of our time in Dunedin with very little coastal activity. It was only when my brother moved to Karitane that I then started having coastal experience. 

CRAWFORD: You were 12 at the time?

YOUNG: Maybe even a little younger, because he was there a number of years. But I remember vividly ... there is an area at Karitane where the fishing boats moor up, and I always used to like going down to watch the boats unload and see the Crayfish and the fish. "I could see fish under the wharf here, so why don't I jump in the water and get a facemask and have a look at them?" That's what I did. And then I borrowed a dive tank - going back to when dive tanks were quite rare. I managed to get this twin hose aqualung, twin tanks, old as Methuselah. And I used to just sit on the bottom and watch the fish go by. [chuckles] So, that was my first diving experience. And of course, from there it just developed. A very early model speargun, which was a spring-loaded [Griegarr??], a French gun. And then I started spearfishing around Karitane.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let's work out the timelines. Age 11 or 12, you were up around Karitane?

YOUNG: Yeah, that's when I first arrived there. Then I really got into the 13/14-year-old diving.

CRAWFORD: But even before you started diving there, I'm guessing you spent time around the coast. Did you spend time swimming?

YOUNG: Yeah, I was good at swimming.

CRAWFORD: Did you get out in a dinghy at all?

YOUNG: Yes, we did have a bit of dinghy time there as boys. We used to surf the waves at Karitane bar in a longboat. That was owned by [Dr. Brett??], who was at the Karitane Hospital at the time. His sons and I, we use to row these longboats out through the mouth, and surf them on the rolling waves, just this side of the bar.

CRAWFORD: Did you do any boarding?

YOUNG: I did, I had a long board. After I broke my neck, I got back into it. Didn't do that for a wee bit. We used to surf the back beach at Karitane. It was good fun.

CRAWFORD: How about fishing? Either handline fishing or rod-and-reel?

YOUNG: Not really. I developed straight into spearfishing. We would just freedive, and that would be enough fish for the taking, basically. There was lots of fish around. And easy to obtain.

CRAWFORD: You remember at what age you started freediving and spearfishing?

YOUNG: Yeah, that was the 14-year mark. And then as time went by, I improved my skills, got a better speargun. Then by the time I was probably 17 or 18, I decided I needed to improve my skills on an underwater breathing apparatus. That was when I got friendly with another chap who was right into diving; he was about my age - Ross Newton. Ross and I developed this lifelong friendship, and we spent hours and hours spearfishing and diving. We never had our tickets, we just did it. His wife always said "You should just go and live with Paul Young, because you spend more time with him then with me." [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: Going back to the mid-teen years, the region of your experience then was mostly focused around Karitane?

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Was there seasonality to the amount of time that you spent freediving and spearfishing?

YOUNG: Yeah, it was mainly in the summer months. Sea conditions basically dictated - and water clarity as well, you know. Because Karitane was subject to northeast winds that come through in the winter. The summer months are more southerly, sou'west than the winter. But I think when there was any chance, I was in the water, basically.

CRAWFORD: And you would've had your six weeks for school vacation, roughly? If we added it all up, would it be maybe 10 weeks a year on or under the water?

YOUNG: I would say so, quite easily. And when I wasn't doing that, there was a lot of rabbit shooting being done round the area.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Seventeen years old. You made a decision to get a little bit more serious with the diving ...

YOUNG: And also got married. That was a major change.

CRAWFORD: Right. When you were diving, was that mostly scubadiving or free diving?

YOUNG: It was a combination of both. About that stage, being married, and we had a child; Judy was dragged around wherever we went. So there was no misunderstanding that she got left behind. And this all coincides with Ross and I getting together and diving. We dived all the Otago Peninsula comprehensively, up to Karitane. We'd be catching Crayfish; they'd be 10-pound Crayfish. They were massive things! Sometimes they were even bigger than that. But if you got a 10 pound one, that was a pretty good catch.

CRAWFORD: When you got married, did you relocate?

YOUNG: We stayed in Dunedin.

CRAWFORD: Your trips up to Karitane, they were daytrips or for the weekend - that kind of thing?

YOUNG: That's right. And my brother still lived there, of course. So we had a longterm relationship of going out, and staying the night there. Things like that. If we didn't do that, we'd just do day trips. And further afield sometimes, to Shag Point. As Judy became more mobile ... you were older, got married, wheels of your own, you could take these trips further afield. 

CRAWFORD: I was particularly interested in the Otago Peninsula region. You dove all the way around there? Blueskin Bay, Warrington, right round ...

YOUNG: Comprehensively, yes. All the time.

CRAWFORD: Around Taiaroa Head?

YOUNG: Yes. Taiaroa, right along to Cape Saunders, all the way along the coast to Smaills Beach. This coast here, from Warrington to Karitane was pretty unproductive, actually. But the headland around Karitane was really productive for spearfishing and freediving Crayfish. A lot of the Crayfish we caught, we weren't actually diving on tanks - just freediving.

CRAWFORD: On the southern end of the Otago Peninsula, did you fish Green Island?

YOUNG: Yep, yep.

CRAWFORD: And further down to Taieri Mouth?

YOUNG: Yeah, yeah definitely.

CRAWFORD: What was the furthest extent, when you were based in Dunedin? 

YOUNG: We came down to Taieri Mouth, and dived out of there. But Green Island and White Island were more of a focal point for Ross and I. We were only using small boats; we were using 12-foot [Parkercrafts??], and really three people on them you were fully loaded, if you had dive tanks and gear. Often we'd just go off the beaches. One really humorous time, Ross and I were at St. Clair, and we had borrowed this dinghy that was just a little ... almost a pram dinghy, as such. And we put this outboard motor on it. The waves were not too bad. Ross said "Gun it!" as this wave came up, and I gave it full power, and it broke the back end of the dinghy, and we're hanging onto the dinghy, and trying to get the motor to stay there while we managed to struggle it all back into shore. [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: What was the split in the 17+ years, between scubadiving and freediving? 50-50?

YOUNG: I would say so, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Was there also seasonality in that?  Mostly in the summer?

YOUNG: Yeah, mostly in the summer. But Ross and I, we would still go diving in the winter. Definitely.

CRAWFORD: During that period, roughly how many weeks a year would you go scubadiving or freediving?

YOUNG: Oh, it wouldn't be many weekends we weren't diving.

CRAWFORD: That's hard-core.

YOUNG: Yeah. As we expanded our wings, and started to get into boat diving - which was the 12-foot [Parkercraft??] and things like that ... we started off with a small engine like 15 hp, and advanced up to 25 hp, which was really something. 

CRAWFORD: That's an important breakpoint. As you get into larger vessels, your ability to go further offshore, and to different places, increases. When did you get that 25 hp motor? How old were you, roughly?

YOUNG: I'd be in my 20s, anyway.

CRAWFORD: And you were working in Dunedin at the time?

YOUNG: Yeah, as a mechanic. 

CRAWFORD: What was the next breakpoint in your coastal waters experience. Either in terms of location, or in terms of activity? What was the next thing that changed?

YOUNG: Ross and I, both being hard workers and adventurers, started doing up cars that had been involved in crashes. Getting write-off cars and rebuilding them, reselling them. That was the next step, because we started getting into bigger boats. And then we started getting into spearfishing competitions that were either in Southland, or even right up at the top - in Marlborough Sounds.

CRAWFORD: Roughly what age were you, when you guys started doing the spearfishing competitions?

YOUNG: Mid to late 20s, I would say. We were definitely right into it. And then the competitive side of it, that was probably late-70s. I can tell you exactly, because I won a major competition. It was 1979.

CRAWFORD: All over the major regions for these spearfishing competitions?

YOUNG: We dived the south coast here. Some of the competitions, the local ones between the Dunedin clubs, mainly held around the Otago Peninsula. And then there was the club up in Balclutha, which was the [Molyneux Club??], and we would dive down around the Nuggets, that area there, and have competitions. When there was the Otago-Southland, we would come down to Invercargill, and often we would go by ferry over to Stewart Island. Or charter a boat. And we might go there, or we might go over to Ruapuke Island. We spent a lot of time at Ruapuke Island, staying with a man called Mason [Wiatiri??] - he was Māori, of course. He would invite us up over there. The Otago Underwater Club - because we were now an organized club - representing the club, we'd go over there. There would sometimes be 15 or 20 of us. We'd take two or three boats, and he had a big boat as well. So, we spent lots of time around Ruapuke Island, out around the Hazelburghs. Incidentally, I was there when I had my first experience - face to face with a White Pointer.

CRAWFORD: Hang on to that one please, for when it comes up in the next part of the interview.

YOUNG: Ok.

CRAWFORD: Did you do some spearfishing at the mouth of Paterson Inlet?

YOUNG: Oh yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: And along the northeast coast of Stewart Island?

YOUNG: We dived this whole area, around the mouth of Paterson Inlet, over around Bench Island, which is the larger of the islands here, Edwards Island and the others - they were all spearfishing areas. You know like, for competitions. That's in that era that I was talking about.

CRAWFORD: Was there seasonality for the competitions? Were they mostly in the summer as well?

YOUNG: They were spread throughout the year.

CRAWFORD: Really?

YOUNG: Yeah. As long as the weather was right. The summer months did normally have more competitive events. But then, if it was the South Island champs, sometimes that was held at Stewart Island. But the focal point was up here at Picton basically. We would go out in boats from Picton, and have competitions in the Marlborough Sounds. French Pass is up in there, we'd dive all around [D’Urville Island??]. You speared really big Kingfish up there, in amongst the Mussel farms, around in this bay here. 

CRAWFORD: So basically, the entire Marlborough Sound region? West to East, North to South?

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: What were the other areas? Hotspots for those spearfishing competitions?

YOUNG: Well, those were the hotspots. Either up there in Marlborough Sounds, or Otago Peninsula, or down here including Stewart Island. And Ruapuke Island was a major event. That was basically where the spearfishing competitions were held. 

CRAWFORD: And roughly what age were you, when you were doing those competitions?

YOUNG: Mid 20s. And then right through until ... it's only since I started commercial diving, that we got out of the spearfishing.

CRAWFORD: Ok. When was that? When did you start commercial diving?

YOUNG: Mid-80s. Ross and I bought quota about ‘86 or ‘87. 

CRAWFORD: So from 1975 to 1985, a decade of intensive spearfishing? Does that sound about right?

YOUNG: Yeah, yeah. For sure.

CRAWFORD: For that decade, realizing that you had a full-time job, how much of the year would you have spent spearfishing?

YOUNG: Well, there's 52 weeks in a year, and there wasn't really many weekends we didn't go spearfishing.

CRAWFORD: And maybe during holidays, things like that?

YOUNG: We took the family, though. It was always family-orientated. And all the competitions in those days, related to family. Because everyone had children. And they all got dragged along. We'd spear the fish, we'd cook them on the beach, or in the local playgrounds that were close to the beach. The kids would have running races, and all sorts of family stuff. There was a trophy called the '[Tarley Trophy??]' which was held between Southland and Otago, and that always wound up being a major event. And at those major events, we were just out doing our own thing. That major event cycle, it would've always been a couple of days, and sometimes we would do trips to Stewart Island or that, and have a week or ten days away.

CRAWFORD: In terms of the split between competitive spearfishing in Marlborough Sounds, Otago Peninsula, and Foveaux Strait - would it have been 30:30:30?

YOUNG: No, it would've been lucky if it was 5% Marlborough Sound. If we went up there, we'd stay 10 days or longer. And dive trips all along the coast on the way, wherever we could dive.

CRAWFORD: Diving as in spearfishing now?

YOUNG: Probably a mix as well. There was one trip I remember, we had a week up in French Pass, we come down the coast all the way, over at Jackson's, and then we came home across to Dunedin here.

CRAWFORD: Ok. So maybe an equal split between the spearfishing competitions around Otago Peninsula and Foveaux Strait?

YOUNG: I think it would be probably more time spent around Stewart Island and Ruapuke, competition-wise. Because you could always get better water down here. It's more of an island situation, where you've got cover. Whereas on Otago Peninsula, you've got a direct sea coming in all the time. And the visibility is challenging at times. You know, you might go out, and spear a fish, and it might not be a couple metres visibility - which, when you're holding a speargun, isn't a whole lot of room.

CRAWFORD: Visibility was typically better around the islands in Foveaux Strait?

YOUNG: Always.

CRAWFORD: In that mid-70s to mid-80s period, when you were doing that intensive spearfishing, that didn't leave a lot of time for other coastal activities. I'm presuming you weren't doing a lot of pleasure boating, or doing other recreational activities on or around New Zealand coastal waters?

YOUNG: Yeah, well we had the small boats, as I said at the start.  When we got into the car wrecks, we went on bigger boats. We'd take them over to Ruapuke. If we went there, we were gone for a week. Same for Stewart Island.

CRAWFORD: The point I was trying to get to, was that above and beyond the time you were spending spearfishing, you were spending substantial time on the boats as well.

YOUNG: Yes. That's when that developed.

CRAWFORD: Ok. That takes us up to the mid-80s. What happened then?

YOUNG: Well, as I said - I was a mechanic. I had always wanted to go to the Chatham Islands, and I'd done a bit of Pāua diving for a guy called [Don Macintosh?? - Mad Mac??]. He's absolutely renowned. That's him in the photo.

CRAWFORD: I've heard about him. Colin Gavan was telling me about him.

YOUNG: [Mad Mac??] An absolute legend. That's all [abs=abalones??] on the bottom. All those little knobs, are [abs??]. He's just hooking them off into a net. So, I did a bit of that. Prior to that, I done a little bit of ab diving myself. Didn't make much money. It was hard trying to be a mechanic, and dive for abs at the weekend. So that sort of fell to bits. Then I thought "I'd like to go to the Chatham Islands. Dive around out there." I geared up a couple of mates to go with. Of course, they fell by the way. So, I went by myself. And it turned out that I had met the publican at Stewart Island in the early days, he was now at Chatham Islands.

CRAWFORD: What do you mean by 'the publican'?

YOUNG: Proprietor of a hotel, or a drinking establishment

CRAWFORD: A public house, a pub?

YOUNG: Yes. So anyway, I fell straight into the right hands when I got to the Chatham Islands. I'd met up with [George Crack??] And he said "Ah, Paul. What are you doing here?" I said "Well, I've been hoping to go diving. And obviously, the guys that were going to come with me didn't.  So, what do you suggest? Have you got anyone you think might be able to take me diving?" And he said "Yep. I've got just the man. [Ben Coburn??]. He owns the biggest quota on the Chatham Islands. And he lives at Kāingaroa." He said "We'll pop out and see him tomorrow." Well, the trip out there was interesting - being the wild west of the Chatham's in those days. Then of course, we wound up in the Fishing Club out there, which was excessive drinking with Ben. [chuckles] He said "You want to try this diving out?" And I said "Too right." So, we come back to Waitangi, which is the main port on the Chatham's. Ben said "I'll come in and pick you up tomorrow." Well, I was out there for two weeks, and Ben picked me up, and I never came back to Waitangi. I stayed at Kāingaroa, And dived every day. We were pulling a tonne, 1200 kilos of Pāuas by one or two in the afternoon, and catching maybe 200 or 300 kilos of Crayfish on a good day. On a bad day, maybe 100 to 150 kilos of Crays. This is handpicking, just grabbing them.

CRAWFORD: All freediving?

YOUNG: All freediving. No tank diving.

CRAWFORD: The Pāua diving and the Cray diving - it was all freediving?

YOUNG: Yep. All freediving.

CRAWFORD: Roughly, how much time were you spending per day in the water?

YOUNG: We would leave, generally, about 5am. It was the summer months we were doing it, when I went out there. The day would be normally over by 1pm. You'd be back at the bar at the Fishing Club, drinking by 2 o'clock.

CRAWFORD: After having put in a full day's work.

YOUNG: Yeah, from 5 o'clock. And then you get up at 5 o'clock the next day, and go again. And this guy never missed. It was every day.

CRAWFORD: How long was that stretch for?

YOUNG: Well, that was just a couple weeks, to start with. So, I come back to New Zealand, back to the garage. And this is when it all changed. He said "Look, you're really good at this. Perhaps you'd like to think about doing a bit more of it." I said "I've got my partner in the garage." So, I come back and said to my partner "It was great out there."  Next thing, the phone goes - and it's Ben from the Chatham's. "Do you want to come back out to the Chatham's and work commercially?" And I said "Ahhh - I definitely want to." It took a split-second to think about it. But then I had to break it to my partner in the garage, that I was going to go away diving. I said to him "Look, is it ok if I take some months off, or a couple of months off, and go diving?" He says "Ok." Well, it wound up turning close to three months. And in three months, I wound up earning $60,000.

CRAWFORD: Which back in the day was ...

YOUNG: Was huuuge money. And I was earning $25,000 working in the garage.

CRAWFORD: Per year?

YOUNG: Per year.

CRAWFORD: Three times the salary, in a quarter of the time.

YOUNG: Yeah. So that's what changed.

CRAWFORD: Alright. That was mid-80s?

YOUNG: That was mid-80s, yep. 

CRAWFORD: Once you went through this ... once you got the bug, did you reach a point where you went fulltime into Pāua diving?

YOUNG: Yes. And my partner in the garage bought my share out. In the background of all this, I had been construction-diving part time as well. 

CRAWFORD: Tell me about that. Where had you been construction diving?

YOUNG: Well, it was mainly around the Otago region. In the harbours, like Port Chalmers. We'd occasionally come down to Bluff, and do a job. Maybe even at Moeraki - we did a wharf there, cut all the piles off, and put new piles in.

CRAWFORD: How long did that go on for, the construction diving?

YOUNG: I was involved in that for years.

CRAWFORD: Five years? Ten years?

YOUNG: No, no - probably twenty. In the same period of time that I was spearfishing with Ross, I was actually doing construction diving as well.

CRAWFORD: Would the construction diving account for maybe a week or two a year?

YOUNG: Probably more, actually. Have you been to Manapouri at all? 

CRAWFORD: Not yet.

YOUNG: Manapouri's got this massive power station there. It's underground, it's built inside a mountain. The water comes out of Lake Manapouri, drops 600 feet down into the turbines, and then it goes into a big manifold - a tailrace that goes right through the mountain, six miles away. They wanted to close the power station down, and basically what happened was - it had never been done before. So we went in, and dived in the power station, and video'd all the turbines and cavitation damage, and the Seals where they can close the water off so they could work on the turbines, stuff like that. They said "Well, we feel that we need to close the power station completely down. A full shutdown, and there's only one way to do it." Where the water come out of the manifold, into the tailrace, there was a big pillar. It was just like a windowsill, and in the windowsill these big stop locks - they were big steel doors, half the length of this passageway here. They were full of air when you took them in, then you sunk them down, put them in the sill, and once they were locked into place you just squeezed them in. Then they used these massive big pumps to pump the power station dry, so they could service the Seals on the draft tube gates and the turbines. So, that was the sort of work we did. Really interesting shit.

CRAWFORD: Big scale too.

YOUNG: It was very, very organized.

CRAWFORD: How much of the construction diving that you did, was in a marine environment rather than in an industrial environment?

YOUNG: Ninety percent would have been industrial.

CRAWFORD: And by marine environment I'm thinking - on a wharf, adjacent to the shoreline, where there was still tidal effect, marine life. That type of thing.

YOUNG: Yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: And you would say that was more like four or five weeks a year?

YOUNG: I'd say it varied from year to year. But definitely three, four, five weeks a year. At least.

CRAWFORD: And that was in the background for that entire period, for about 20 years - something like that?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let's go back to you starting your commercial fisheries diving, after the Chatham Islands experience. When you set up shop, did you relocate, or were you working out of Dunedin?

YOUNG: Out of Dunedin, still.

CRAWFORD: Did you lease quota? Did you buy quota?

YOUNG: My wife and I were building a new home at the time. Basically, I mortgaged the house up to the eyeballs, and bought quota - Ross and I. Took the bull by the horns, and said "Let's do it."

CRAWFORD: This was mid- to late-80s?

YOUNG: It would probably be 87 or 88, I think. I could check the records, or Ross probably has a better memory than me. But that would be pretty close.

CRAWFORD: The two of you bought sufficient quota to start up full-time commercial Pāua diving?

YOUNG: Yep. And we just about went broke. Because at that time, the interest rates were 26%. It was crazy. How we ever thought we were going to survive, I don't know. But we did, because we managed to refinance, and the rates came back, and then we started making money. But we used to laugh, we were making that much money - we couldn't believe it ... but it was all going straight to the bank. We tidied that up a bit, and changed banks a couple of times, and then we started going ahead.

CRAWFORD: In terms of region, where was it that you were fishing Pāua?

YOUNG: When we started, we concentrated most of our effort on this area around the Hazelberghs, Seal Rocks, pretty much this part of Stewart Island. 

CRAWFORD: The eastern side of the island?

YOUNG: Both. Because when we started, it was wintertime, we were based at Halfmoon Bay. Ross and I rented houses down there. Incidentally, one of them was from [George Crack??] - I had arranged that when I was out on the Chatham's. Anyway, we dived all these islands extensively, right up round here. The Ruggedies, Codfish ...

CRAWFORD: Mason's?

YOUNG: Well, we didn't really get past Hellfire. In the early days, Ross and I didn't really travel much past Hellfire. Then we got involved with a guy called [Rex Tate??], and Rex actually got us into the Pāuas. He said "This is going to go, boys. You should buy some quota." He joined forces with us, and because we were all sort of like-minded, we often used his boat because he had a bigger boat. So we just split the catch. And then he moved on, and we moved on. Ross and I just carried on diving, and we'd come all the way right down to Port Pegasus here. But our main diving from [Shoulder Point??] to Codfish, that was our main area. Occasionally we'd come over ... one day we come over to Centre Island, because it was such a nice day. We were on our way to Codfish, and I said "Let's go over to Centre Island for a look." We didn't actually dive the island, we went to [Sail Reef??] and we loaded the boat - chocka; it wouldn't take any more Pāuas. And they were massive Abalone, I'll tell ya. You wouldn't believe it, just everywhere. And then we just went back to Halfmoon Bay.

CRAWFORD: Was there seasonality to that Pāua diving?

YOUNG: All the year round, because we were catching our own quota, and a lot of leased quota.

CRAWFORD: So, pretty much whenever the weather allowed? 

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: And around Stewart Island, there's always someplace protected to dive?

YOUNG: That's right.

CRAWFORD: So, most of the year you were busy fishing?

YOUNG: Most of the year we were busy fishing. And that was all through the late-80s and the ‘90s.

CRAWFORD: Including both sides of Stewart Island?

YOUNG:  Well, that's Mason's Head there. Mason's Head was a really productive area. And from there up through Little Hellfire and Big Hellfire, just huge Pāuas. If you got them there, you were going to load up. Our best day there on Rex's boat was 2.6 tonne for the day. So that gives you an idea. 

CRAWFORD: And then also the northeast side of the island?

YOUNG: From [Shoulder Point??] to there ...

CRAWFORD: But also the Islands, the Titi Islands?

YOUNG: All the time.

CRAWFORD: Over at Ruapuke?

 YOUNG: No, Ruapuke was closed to commercial diving. The Hazelburghs, this group of islands here, they're all open to Pāua diving. And you go around this side here, there's Seal Rocks. And if you've talked to Ross, you'll know that he will never go back to Seal Rocks, because of White Pointers. [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: We'll get there, I promise. So, this part of your history brings us right up through the ‘90s?

YOUNG: Yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: And your commercial diving is ...

YOUNG: Still going.

CRAWFORD: What I'm trying to get to, is whether commercial diving was taking up so much of your time. Whether there was any time for other marine activities like spearfishing?

YOUNG: Only for a feed. The spearfishing stopped, like recreationally. We just never had time.

CRAWFORD: Well that's the point. Recreation stopped.

YOUNG: Yeah, recreation stopped. Because we were on the bones of our ass when we started. We had money, but we were mortgaged big-time. Basically, we had to go out.

CRAWFORD: But there weren't a bunch of other recreational activities in the background during that period. You just didn't have time for it.

YOUNG: Nah.

CRAWFORD: That takes us right through the ‘90s. What was the next change then, either in activity or region?

YOUNG: Towards the end of the ‘90s, in 1998, I tendered for a contract with the Department of Conservation. There is a weed that grows here in Bluff and at Stewart Island, and most of the other parts in the lower part of New Zealand - it's a weed called [Undaria??]. It's what sushi is made out of - [wakane??]. It was considered a marine pest here, it was like the [gorse??] of the sea. Once it got into the marine farms, it made harvesting really difficult. DOC [Department of Conservation] didn't want it on Stewart Island - to keep it pristine. So, they decided that they would let this contract out for Stewart Island and Bluff. The contract was for 220 days a year diving. And I was still Pāua diving at the time. I had to run two boats, and two sets of crew. It involved a total of ten people: three on the Pāua boat, two diving and a dinghy boy; doing the work on the salmon farms and the mussel farms and around Big Glory Bay mainly, and Bluff Harbour. We'd have four divers on the boat, and one boat person, so that was eight. And you needed at least two people backup, because there was always someone ...

CRAWFORD: Sick, or family emergency, whatever?

YOUNG: And we were working, just on the contract doing the DOC stuff, 220 days a year. So, weatherwise it was challenging to try and fit it in. Even though it's all happening here in Big Glory Bay. So, then we would come across to Bluff, work in the Bluff Harbour for DOC as well. And then, as DOC started to get cold feet and think that they couldn't expend any more money on it, the marine farmers then employed us under separate contracts. We carried on diving, doing that for them. All the time Pāua diving as well. 

CRAWFORD: And this takes us from the late-90s until when?

YOUNG: 1998 when we started. Contract went to 2005 on that particular issue. Then, they started extending work contracts here in Bluff doing work, which carried on till today. I've just come in today from doing it. I've been doing vessel inspections for vessels that are *Fiordland-bound. They don't want this seaweed, it's a marine pest they say. And it is, it basically overpowers any other seaweed. Because it's dense, it has this foliage that cuts out the light. And of course, once the other seaweeds ... the light goes underneath, they don't survive as well. So, it will remove a lot of the other ecosystem that is there, and it develops an ecosystem of its own. Like little fish, and whatever. So, it's not altogether a total disaster. 

CRAWFORD: But it's still a big change.

YOUNG: Huge change, yeah.

CRAWFORD: The extension of that seaweed work runs right through to today?

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: In terms of Pāua diving ...

YOUNG: I stopped.

CRAWFORD: What year did you stop?

YOUNG: I stopped Pāua diving - physically in the water - probably six or seven years ago. I was just going to come up 59, 60. Something like that. So, then I jumped in the dinghy, and I was dinghy boy for a while - which is just running around picking up the abs and bagging them up to go to the factory.

CRAWFORD: That was 2008 or so?

YOUNG: I'm 66 now, so if you went back ten years. I did the dinghy boy for a while, and then I said "Enough." My last commercial dive was actually at Edwards Island, where the Shark caging was going. I dived there summertime, and we had a shit of a trip back to Bluff,  and I said "I'm too old for this shit." [laughs]

CRAWFORD: And the Shark cage tour dive boats were out there?

YOUNG: Not on that day, no.

CRAWFORD: But that was their primary spot?

YOUNG: Yeah, yeah. But there was no White Pointers there that day.

CRAWFORD: Ok. And that brings us up-to-date?

YOUNG: Yes.

2. EXPOSURE TO MĀORI/LOCAL/SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS 

[Accidentally omitted from interview]

3. WHITE POINTER DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE

CRAWFORD: What was the first time in your life that you remember hearing about White Pointers in particular, not Sharks in general, but White Pointers?

YOUNG: Well, they were never really highly focused on. It would have been probably, when I was at Karitane with my brother, that they mentioned there was a big Shark around the boat. And that's it, nothing else.

CRAWFORD: I've heard from other people that have some years on them, back in the day people didn't talk about 'White Pointers'; they would just say 'Shark.'

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: Obviously, if it's a big Shark, there are only a handful of New Zealand Shark species that get to that size. Even if people didn't talk in terms of 'White Pointers' back in the day, was it your impression that when you first heard about these Sharks around the boat, that it was likely what you would come to know as a White Pointer?

YOUNG: I would highly suspect that, because if it was a Blue Shark or a Mako, they don't grow in girth the same. A big Shark is a fat Shark. It may not be that long, but if it's a big Shark, chances are it's a White Pointer.

CRAWFORD: You've identified girth as an important factor, and that is one of the common themes that comes out when I asked people to distinguish among the big Sharks. There are really only two other Sharks that get to the size of the biggest White Pointers, and that's the Basking Shark and the Whale Shark, but the Whale Sharks are very clearly not White Pointers. Have you seen Basking Sharks in New Zealand waters?

YOUNG: Heaps of them. Around Stewart Island in the early days.

CRAWFORD: As a guy who has seen both White Pointers and Basking Sharks in the wild, what are the most simple things to see that tell you straight away it's one species and not the other?

YOUNG: Well, a Basking Shark, when it's on the surface, its nose is just cruising the surface. And it's got this massive mouth that's filter feeding ... it's just a big vacuum cleaner going through the sea. And they're such a big floppy thing, their dorsal fin flops back and forwards when they're getting along. They are rather cumbersome looking things. Where a White Pointer is just a mean piece of meat. It's a lethal machine. And it's solid. I know how solid they are.

CRAWFORD: In terms of colouration ...

YOUNG: Totally different. Well, the Basking Sharks here, have generally a light tan of colour, and blotchy. That's been pretty much standard. Like, the variation in colour hasn't really been hardly anything. They've been very much all the same.

CRAWFORD: And colouration patterns with the White Pointers?

YOUNG: Steel grey to blue. And white underneath, of course.

CRAWFORD: Alright. When I asked you about the first time you had heard about or seen a White Pointer, you thought back to your early teen years up around Karitane, and those Sharks coming around the boat. 

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: Did they talk about those Sharks as being aggressive in any way? Showing interest? Did they say anything about that?

YOUNG: It was no big deal, otherwise I would have remembered. They just said "Ah yeah, just cruised around the boat." They might have mentioned that it was eating maybe the guts from Blue Cod, or Blue Cod heads that they would throw over the side. It wasn't until later years, that I caught on to the fact that they are quite intelligent. As far as the engine tones of various boats,

CRAWFORD: Ok. We'll get into that specifically, in a bit.

YOUNG: Ok. 

CRAWFORD: Let's go back in time and place to Karitane. You spent a fair amount of time on and in the water.

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: Did the old-timers ever tell you that you needed to be careful in that region? Either certain places, or times of year?

YOUNG: No. We spearfished right out the back of Karitane - like way off.

CRAWFORD: How far off?

YOUNG: 300, 400 metres off. That's quite a way when you're spearfishing. Normally, you're reasonably close in. You'd swim off the back beach, you'd swim around the peninsula here, and maybe get out round the corner a bit, and you'd fish. Or you'd just swim back in onto the beach, towing your fish on a line. If there was any predator, whether it be White Pointer or a Sevengiller, it would have been around there having a sniff.

CRAWFORD: And that was going to be my very next question. Given the fact that you were not only spending time on and under the water, but you were also doing something that was potentially at the high end of level of interest for Sharks in general. And as you said, a number of different types of Sharks. Of all the times that you spent spearfishing around Karitane, did you ever have any Sharks kind of poking around, checking your float, anything like that?

YOUNG: No. The only thing I can remember is the Grey Shark, the Greyboy shark, and they're only a small Shark. Seeing those occasionally, but not generally.

CRAWFORD: You also mentioned Shag Point. You spearfished around Shag Point?

YOUNG: Yep, Yep. Seen Sharks there. White Pointers.

CRAWFORD: When you were a kid? Or in the later days?

YOUNG: Later days.

CRAWFORD: Ok. We'll get there as we advance through your story chronologically.

YOUNG: Yeah, never seen a Shark in those earlier days.

CRAWFORD: That's why I was asking you about the old-timers. I mean, as a kid, you didn't have the old-timers taking you aside warning you?

YOUNG: No.

CRAWFORD: Did locals or old-timers tell you that Shag Point was ‘sharky’?

YOUNG: No.

CRAWFORD: Other than that incident, had your mates ever talked about seeing White Pointers, or other kinds of indications of White Pointers?

YOUNG: Well it was always sort of thought of one of those places, because you're out on a long reef that comes up out of the deep. Lots of fish life, and Seals. All the recipe for Sharks.

CRAWFORD: Well, that's a good point. As a spearfisherman, did you avoid those kinds of combinations of deep water, drop off, lots of fish, and Seals?

YOUNG: To be honest, we didn't worry about it. We just carried on.

CRAWFORD: That's the distinct impression I'm getting. Alright. In terms of Otago Peninsula, I've got two or three more questions for you. The first relates specifically to Otago Harbour. Did you ever hear from the old-timers or the locals, about anybody seeing White Pointers in the harbour?

YOUNG: Not really, not in the conversations I had with people. Probably people could have mentioned it to me, but we didn't really dive much in the harbour. And the only Shark that hit me, not a White Pointer, was in the entrance to the Otago Harbour, at Otakau where there's some moorings. My brother had a mooring there, and it was filthy water ...

CRAWFORD: Filthy water in terms of what?

YOUNG: Well I mean, visibility 1 metre.

CRAWFORD: So, filthy in terms of visibility. Was it polluted water?

YOUNG: No, no. Just turbid. Yeah. And this Shark come up and hit me - winded me. Hit me right in the side. And I went "Ah, Jesus." And it was there, and it was gone. But I would say it was probably a Grey Nurse or something. It didn't look like a White Pointer.

CRAWFORD: Or a Sevengiller maybe?

YOUNG: Could be a Sevengiller. Probably a Sevengiller, yeah. Definitely wasn't a White Pointer. Definitely not.

CRAWFORD: At Otakou, do you remember the fish processing plant there?

YOUNG: There was only the wharf from the factory there.

CRAWFORD: At that time?

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Do you remember hearing about the fish processing plant?

YOUNG: Not really, no.

CRAWFORD: Do you ever remember people telling you about at dump of the fish waste from the processing plant?

YOUNG: Yes. Yes I do. And I do remember people saying there'd be Sharks there. I do remember, you've jogged my memory. But I suppose that would be normal, wouldn't it?

CRAWFORD: Roughly when would that have been, when you were told about it? Back in your teens? Early 20s?

YOUNG: Ah, look ... I think way back.

CRAWFORD: When they said 'Sharks,' was it just Sharks in general? Or did anybody even ever mention the big Sharks?

YOUNG: Nah, nah.

CRAWFORD: Ok. In terms of St. Clair, St. Kilda ...

YOUNG: Yeah, well we knew that that was a hotspot, for sure.

CRAWFORD: How did you know?

YOUNG: Because, the amount of sightings that were seen, and the fact that those guys were attacked, you know?

CRAWFORD: Prior to the attacks there, was there any indication that the region was ‘sharky’?

YOUNG: No. No.

CRAWFORD: What did you hear, if anything, about the attacks at St. Clair and St. Kilda?

YOUNG: It was obviously guys that were training, surf life savers. While they were out there, or someone sitting on a surfboard. And a White Pointer comes along and tries to bite their leg off, but just leave some teeth in the surfboard.

CRAWFORD: But these attacks were all in the years when you were there - doing your spearfishing thing.

YOUNG: We never worried about it.

CRAWFORD: Ok. In terms of the response, Dunedin City Council got those Shark nets set up. Do you remember those?

YOUNG: Yes. And they did catch Sharks in them.

CRAWFORD: How do you know that they caught Sharks?

YOUNG: Because I was privy to some of the guys that were clearing the nets. And they did catch Sharks.

CRAWFORD: Do you remember who you were privy to?

YOUNG: It was the man from Taeiri Mouth ... And I'm sure the person that told me would have got it from a reasonable source. But I never saw it myself.

CRAWFORD: As a person who fished in those waters, and spent time in those waters, did you get the sense that there was a degree of protection that was afforded to people by those Shark nets?

YOUNG: Not really. No, I've always believed that if you're going to get taken, you're going to get taken - whether it's on the land, or in the sea. To be honest, I would find it very hit and miss. To have a White Pointer swimming around, that wound up in the net, or didn't wind up in the net. And still come along there and chomp someone.

CRAWFORD: Alright. Last question about Otago Peninsula. There was a series of attacks, within a small geographic space, and a short period of time. Not a whole lot before, and not a whole lot after. What the heck's with that?

YOUNG: It's bizarre. Because, honestly, it was all about that time, and yet ... Like, to me, the Sharks have been there forever, Steve. I mean, they've been cruising the ocean, minding their own business. And those guys just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

CRAWFORD: And the fact that these attacks happened in proximity over a short period of time? Was that just by chance?

YOUNG: No, I wouldn't think it's by chance. There's something happening there. Activity in the water there. They are highly sensitive animals, aren't they? And they know what activities are going on.

CRAWFORD: Yeah, but those activities were going on before the attacks, and after. Those activities were happening up and down the coast.

YOUNG: Well, you couldn't be worse than me and Ross out there spearfishing, could you?

CRAWFORD: No, you really couldn't!

YOUNG: No. [chuckles] I think it comes back to, when you're numbers up, it's up.

CRAWFORD: Alright, we'll leave it at that.

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: After that, if I'm not mistaken, your life-changing experience over at the Chatham Islands. Did you see any White Pointers in the brief time that you were over there?

YOUNG: Never seen one. I saw lots of results!

CRAWFORD: Tell me about the results.

YOUNG: Right. As I've said, I love my spearfishing. And Ben said, "You're crazy! You don't spearfish on the Chatham Islands. You're just mad! Because you will get eaten. That's guaranteed." He said "There's White Pointers here by the miles. I've seen them. And I've seen the amount of fish ... you put a setline down, and you go "Oh. More heads." Because they get Groper that have been bitten off just behind the gill plates. So, you get the head hanging on the hook. Anyway, this day we're Pāua diving round in Okawa Bay, and Ben says "There, you see all those Groper there?" They're all swimming around the bottom. And big Moki, and that while we're Pāua diving. I'd never seen that in my life before. Quite amazing. And I'm in 30 or 40 feet of water, you know? So, I thought "I'm coming back here with my speargun. And I'm going to spear some of these things." Then he says "You're mad! Don't do it." So anyway, needless to say, I went. And I had this guy in the dinghy. And I said "Look, when I spear the fish, we'll put it straight in the dinghy." And I speared three or four fish, and I thought "Ahh, if I don't get out ..." I just didn't feel right. So, I got out, and went home. A bit later, he said "We'll go and catch some Groper." And I said "That'll be bloody great!" We set these lines, and were just out from Kāingaroa - not far". We got a couple of Groper, and up they come, got the next line, and ... just heads left on it. These Groper that you get over there are bloody big Groper. They're not just little tiddlers, you know?

CRAWFORD: Like how big?

YOUNG: Like, the weight of the Groper, that the heads were coming up, would be probably 30 or 40 pound, maybe 50 pound. So I'm thinking "Shit. He's not kidding." And then, we got this bloody Shark come up. It had obviously taken one of the baits. And its head was about this long ...

CRAWFORD: About three quarters of a metre?

YOUNG: A Sevengiller.

CRAWFORD: Oh.

YOUNG: Yeah, it wasn't a White Pointer. It was a Sevengiller. But it was like, that round. So, it was a bloody big fish. And it had been cut off, like it had been hit with a guillotine. And it was just jagged bits hanging back from it.

CRAWFORD: The Sevengiller was?

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: So, something had eaten ... 

YOUNG: Bitten it in half, obviously. Or, bitten the back end of it off. "Enough if that!" I said. "I'm not gonna spearfish here ever again!" [chuckles] True story. So that was my Chatham Island experience.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Before we leave, what had the old-timers or the locals at the Chatham Islands - other than telling you that you were mad to go spearfishing there - had they told you anything about why there were so many White Pointers at the Chatham's?

YOUNG: Well, they just said there were heaps of White Pointers there. You know, Ben had seen them when he had been Pāua diving, and also tankdiving, and he said there's just White Pointers all over the place.

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] Based on his experience, for the White Pointers that he saw while he was Pāua diving and tankdiving, were they mostly Level 1 Observation, Level 2 Swim-By, Level 3 Interest, or Level 4 Attitude?

YOUNG: Probably a mix and match, I think. Not that he's been bitten.

CRAWFORD: No, but I mean there would have been some that he just saw, maybe some Swim-By's, ...

YOUNG: And some with interest, and some with more aggression.

CRAWFORD: He did indicate that while he was Pāua diving and tank diving that he got some ...

YOUNG: Interest, yep. But he would just say "That's it, I've had enough."

CRAWFORD: In terms of attacks, Level 4, over at the Chatham's, did people ever talk about that?

YOUNG: Obviously, yes. It's been quite common to have more aggressive Shark happenings over there. More than it probably is on the Otago Peninsula.

CRAWFORD: The Chatham Island aggregation, is it a more dense aggregation than at Otago Peninsula?

YOUNG: I would say definitely.

CRAWFORD: Is it a more dense aggregation than at Stewart Island?

YOUNG: I don't know. But I know that there's probably more. At a guess. At an overall guess.

CRAWFORD: That's fine. Remember when I asked you, did the old-timers or locals there have any idea about why that place? Why the Chathams?

YOUNG: Not really, no. They just said "There's a lot of White Pointers here." It's always been contentious about Codboats.

CRAWFORD: At the Chathams?

YOUNG: Just generally.

CRAWFORD: So the Chathams as well as here?

YOUNG: Yeah, but the strange thing on the Chathams - when I was there in those days, they generally didn't clean their fish at sea. They just brought them onto the boat whole, and they went to the factory in barrels, and the product was bloody terrible because the heat would generate up. They'd all be on top of one another, and smothering, and overheating. A lot of the fish got dumped, or used for Crayfish bait. That's how bad a condition it was in. So, it was only in latter years that they did cleaning, which would be gutting and heading.

CRAWFORD: That was after you were there at the Chathams, you heard about this?

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Did you hear, after you were gone, that when they started cleaning fish, that they started to have more interactions with White Pointers?

YOUNG: Yes. Yes, I did.

CRAWFORD: And what did you hear about those interactions?

YOUNG: Well, not that good. Because some of the guys had dived relatively close to where the cleaning had been happening, and had been attacked.

CRAWFORD: How many attacks do you recall hearing about from the Chathams?

YOUNG: One.

CRAWFORD: And who was that?

YOUNG: I think the guy... He's down here at Stewart Island. You know, with a bit of his arm missing?

CRAWFORD: You remember his name?

YOUNG: Yeah, I do - if you said it.

CRAWFORD: Kina?

YOUNG: Yeah, Kina.

CRAWFORD: Scollay?

YOUNG: Yeah, Kina Scollay. Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Without going too much further, the association - at least among people that you know - was it that there could very well have been a cause-effect relationship with the fish cleaning and dumping ...

YOUNG: I'm sure.

CRAWFORD: And the behaviour of the Sharks, such that it would increase the probability of that particular attack?

YOUNG: I totally agree.

CRAWFORD: What's the food like, in terms of density of fish around the Chathams? Is that maybe one particular reason why the White Pointers are aggregating around there?

YOUNG: It's huge. Your density of fish is absolutely incredible. Taking it to another trip, we went out to the 44s, which is out off the Chathams quite a way. We were fishing in very deep water, and once again we pulled up the heads of Groper. Because there was something biting them off. But I would expect that it would be highly probable that it would be an area where White Pointers live, because of the Seal colonies there.

CRAWFORD: Well, that was going to be my next question. A lot of Seals at the Chatham's?

YOUNG: In some places, yes. Definite.

CRAWFORD: I mean, you were only there for a short period of time, but you know people there. You still speak with them.

YOUNG: Oh yeah. Definitely.

CRAWFORD: Has there been an increase in Seals over the Chathams? Like for other places around New Zealand?

YOUNG: Well, I would be highly surprised if there wasn't. The endangered side - Hooker Sea Lions, and that. That, to me, is total nonsense because over the years Ross and I have seen Hooker Sea Lions in the southern part of New Zealand, and now they’re right up here. So they actually increased in numbers dramatically. But Seals ... the Bunkers out off Stewart Island would be the classic place; when the rookery is going full bore, there's just Seal pups everywhere.

CRAWFORD: At the Chathams, has there been an increase in the number of interactions between White Pointers and boats? Over the past decade or so? Have you heard anything about that?

YOUNG: I can't comment on that, Steve. Unless you're living there ...

CRAWFORD: Fair enough. And that was of fairly short period of time that you spent at the Chathams, is that right?

YOUNG: It was over a period of three years, three seasons, that I went down.

CRAWFORD: About two months per season?

YOUNG: Yeah. And that gave me enough money to finish building the house, and to buy quota that Ross and I purchased.

CRAWFORD: Before I forget, those spearfishing competitions. Three different regions. We've already talked about your activities in the Otago Peninsula region. Marlborough Sounds, Cook Strait in general, did you ever see any White Pointers up there?

YOUNG: Never.

CRAWFORD: Did the local people, or the old-timers, ever talk about White Pointers up in Cook Strait generally?

YOUNG: Yes, it was an area that had a big fishery up there. I guess why Sharks would be in the area, lots of food, etcetera.

CRAWFORD: Sharks in general, or White Pointers in particular?

YOUNG: This is just in general.

CRAWFORD: In terms of specifics, with regards to White Pointers up there, do you ever remember people talking about them in the Cook Strait region?

YOUNG: No.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Now spearfishing competitions at Stewart Island, prior to you and Ross getting into the business of Pāua diving. This is important because you have memory in that region prior to the DOC tagging program for White Pointers, and prior to the cage tour dive operations. During your spearfishing years around Stewart Island at various locations, mainly the eastern side - in front of Paterson Inlet ...

YOUNG: And Ruapuke.

CRAWFORD: And Ruapuke.

YOUNG: And Green Island-R, because they did hold competitions out there specifically.

CRAWFORD: When you went there with your other spearfishing mates, did the old-timers or the locals take you aside and tell you that you were spearfishing in the areas that were frequented by White Pointers?

YOUNG: No. No they didn't. Never really mentioned it, but there was always people would say "Ah, there's been a big Shark hanging around the boat sometimes." But that's all normal for spearfishing.

CRAWFORD: Ok. So relatively rare comments. When the comments did come in, it was 'Shark' rather than White Pointer?

YOUNG: Correct.

CRAWFORD: But if it was a big Shark, there are very few Sharks that can get up to that size range.

YOUNG: That's right.

CRAWFORD: Could very well have been a White Pointer. But the third thing is that, you know - it showed up next to the boat. Kind of an impressive-sized fish, but no sense of negative interactions? Mostly at the Level 1 or Level 2 kinds of interactions?

YOUNG: Well, I would imagine they would just be happy and not having a feed of the fish that were being cleaned at that time by fisherman. At that time a lot of fish was headed or gutted, or even filleted. When I say filleted, that they just grabbed the head, get the knife and run it down the side; the skin stayed on it. Their boats all had freezers, so they would actually just put the fillet with the skin on it and bones in it, in a bag and freeze it. And then it would go to the factory like that. And the rest of the body would be thrown over the side. And of course, that would bring a huge amount of bird life around, thrashing on the surface, and blood and guts. So, if anything is in the water, it's going to know what's going on.

CRAWFORD: You're talking about fisherman, and in particular you talking about commercial Codfishermen now?

YOUNG: Yes I am.

CRAWFORD: Let's get back to the spearfisherman. They’re are out there for recreation or competition, out there in these waters. Lots of fish. You're towing some kind of float behind you, I presume?

YOUNG: Yeah, a float with a long string.

CRAWFORD: Roughly, how many metres of string?

YOUNG: Ah, 10 to 15 metres. The system was, you had one long string hanging down with a spike that you pushed through the gill, and when it come up the other side the fish flopped around on the string, bleeding like hell and there's blood everywhere. And you just towed it behind you like that. How no one ever got eaten - I'll never know!

CRAWFORD: When you were diving at Ruapuke, what did your mates, those guys tell you about the White Pointers there? You already knew that they were around from them?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: When the conversation turned to White Pointers either prior to that, or after that, did they tell you why they thought Ruapuke was ‘sharky’?

YOUNG: Well, it would have to be the Seals. Because the island is infested with them. Or was. And probably more so now than ever.

CRAWFORD: So, even back in the day, there were plenty of Seals around Ruapuke?

YOUNG: Oh yeah. In the Hazelburghs there was a big colony. And it's the same as Seal Rocks, which is further out again. It's not called Seal Rocks for nothing. It's covered in them.

CRAWFORD: But did they tell you anything about reasons why Ruapuke? Was it the food that was the reason for the White Pointers?

YOUNG: The boats that fish, like they would clean fish in the bay at Henrietta. That's why you get the Sevengillers in there, for sure. And you can guarantee, where there's Sevengillers, there's White Pointers too. There's no doubt whatsoever that they're getting a free feed.

CRAWFORD: I forgot to ask you a question, and this just reminded me. Do you ever remember hearing about a Shark that some people reckoned was resident up around the Otago Peninsula?

YOUNG: KZ-1?

CRAWFORD: KZ-7.

YOUNG: 7. KZ-7. Yeah.

CRAWFORD: You do you remember hearing about?

YOUNG: Oh, yeah, yeah. For sure.

CRAWFORD: What did you hear about KZ-7, as somebody who grew up and lived in that region?

YOUNG: The guys that I was associated with in the Tautuku Fishing Club had seen it several times, when they were out fishing. Because they'd be putting berley out on the water. I was in that club for a while as well, and we would put berley to bring the Makos and the Blue Sharks in. And there was lots of them, I might add. In that era of time, which is probably going back to the early-80s. And there was lots and lots of them. I really don't remember seeing any White Pointers - at all - coming up that berley line.

CRAWFORD: The fishing club, and the berleying - they were fishing competitively?

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: My understanding, from other sources, is that there was very very little response bringing White Pointers up along their berley trails.

YOUNG: Didn't happen. Nah.

CRAWFORD: In terms of KZ-7 though, there were people in the fishing club who did see a White Pointer that they called KZ-7?

YOUNG: Yeah. Oh, definitely.

CRAWFORD: What was the story, in general, about KZ-7?

YOUNG: Because it was such an enormous dorsal fin on it ... I don't know that anyone was actually ever beside it, and got close enough to physically see the dimensions of it. But they said it just had this massive fin.

CRAWFORD: Whereabouts did this get reported?

YOUNG: Mainly out from Taiaroa Head, around that area, along the front face towards Wickliffe Bay area. Along that front face area.

CRAWFORD: Over what period of time?

YOUNG: It was more than one season.

CRAWFORD: And the idea then, that this animal ...

YOUNG: Was living in that area.

CRAWFORD: At that time. It went away?

YOUNG: Yes it did. It would.

CRAWFORD: The idea that an animal would go away and come back to a place - this idea of residency, even for a period of time.

YOUNG: And Seals.

CRAWFORD: What about Seals? Did anyone ever see KZ-7 take a Seal?

YOUNG: Nah, nah.

CRAWFORD: Or just the spatial association ...

YOUNG: Just the association, yeah.

CRAWFORD: And then, KZ-7 after a bit, it's legendary? It enters into myth.

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: That's all back up in the Otago Peninsula region. But getting back to Ruapuke, did the fellas that you knew from there - did they talk at all about resident White Pointers?

YOUNG: No, no.

CRAWFORD: Did they talk about seasonality?

YOUNG: Look, to be honest, I don't think we talked White Pointers much. Because we were divers, and they probably didn't want to scare the hell out of us.

CRAWFORD: Quite possibly.

YOUNG: And that's the truth. That's what I think.

CRAWFORD: Fair enough. So, there was one animal you saw at Ruapuke. In that region. Did you see any other White Pointers in the Foveaux Strait region during your spearfishing competition years?

YOUNG: No.

CRAWFORD: And this was prior to you and Ross setting up as commercial Pāua divers?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: Did you hear anything from the locals, especially the old-timers, anything about specific areas, specific times that White Pointers were frequenting anywhere around the Foveaux Strait region, including Stewart Island?

YOUNG: Yeah, yeah. Definitely.

CRAWFORD: What would the old-timers tell you?

YOUNG: Well, they said that it's often they'll time their arrival with the Seal pups there.

CRAWFORD: And this is back in the day? Back in the ‘70s, you were hearing this?

YOUNG: No, no. This is when I started commercial diving.

CRAWFORD: When you were commercial diving, and spending so much time around the island. Did you, during your commercial diving days, see White Pointers around Stewart Island?

YOUNG: Only once. We were diving around the back ...

CRAWFORD: Roughly what year was it?

YOUNG: Would have been in the mid-90s, probably.

CRAWFORD: What season was it, if you recall?

YOUNG: Summer.

CRAWFORD: When you say 'around the back' - where do you mean?

YOUNG: Around here.

CRAWFORD: Codfish?

YOUNG: Codfish, yeah. Hellfire

CRAWFORD: What do you know about the movement of these animals? These White Pointers?

YOUNG: Well they migrate, big time.

CRAWFORD: Where do they migrate to and from?

YOUNG: Up into the Pacific, right across towards Australia. We're not talking one or two miles. It's thousands of miles.

CRAWFORD: Right. So, the distance between Edwards Island and Halfmoon Bay is nothing, compared to what these animals are capable of doing.  

YOUNG: Right.

CRAWFORD: How do you know about that?       

YOUNG: Because they've tagged them, and proved it.

CRAWFORD:  And do you know who ‘they’ is? The people who've been tagging New Zealand White Pointers?

YOUNG: Well, I know DOC's had a comprehensive program going. But I believe that there's other people in the world are doing the same thing.

CRAWFORD: Right. When we say 'migration,' it's the idea that these animals are going away and then coming back?

YOUNG: Generally, yes. the ones that I've heard that have been tagged around here.

CRAWFORD: By DOC? 

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: Why is it that you think that these White Pointers would come here from great distances, then go away great distances, and then come back again?

YOUNG: Well, I guess they have a preferred breeding spot, like a lot of animals in the world. And they have a feeding ground preferred as well. "Let’s hop over there and do our breeding, and let’s come back here for our food." And that’s a simple equation, I would say.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Have you heard from the old-timers or from any of your contemporaries, anything that would lead you to believe that they may actually be coming here to breed? 

YOUNG: No, I haven’t.

CRAWFORD: Ok. In the Foveaux Strait-Stewart Island region, have you ever heard of a Level 4, high aggression incident between a White Pointer and a Human?

YOUNG: No, I haven’t. Not in my time.

CRAWFORD: Even the old-timers? Did they ever talk about it?

YOUNG: Highly probably that none of them even got near the water, or close enough. They were on a fishing boat, or in a dinghy. That was about it.

CRAWFORD: Right, but there were others too. I mean if somebody had been attacked ...

YOUNG: You'd hear about it.

CRAWFORD: That kind of news travels fast.

YOUNG: I definitely haven’t. Not in this area, no.

CRAWFORD: All right, that’s the set of your experiences in Foveaux Strait, around Steward Island, and the islands in the Strait. Let’s talk about the time during your commercial Pāua diving, but prior to DOC tagging the Sharks, and the Shark cage tour dive operations, which means we’re going back prior to ten years ago. When you put together your knowledge of everything … the old-timers, the locals, your own experiences; when we’re talking about the southern end of the South Island, Foveaux Strait Islands, Stewart Island, all of those regions -  prior to ten years ago, what areas would you have thought as being White Pointer aggregation areas?

YOUNG: You know, Pāua divers in general get this feel about things, where they don’t like being. Or have heard stories. Well, Ross Newton is the classic story of Seal Rocks. And Seal Rocks is Ross’s worst nightmare. That he’s been diving out there and three times White Pointers have come round him. And three times, he’s gotten out of the water, and there won’t be a fourth because he’s not going back in. So, that’ll be one spot. The Hazelburghs would definitely be another spot. Fair enough, I've only had that one encounter there, but I could believe that that would be a focal place cause of the Seal pups and stuff like that. The Bunkers at Stewart Island, I’ve never seen a White Pointer there, but I just can’t believe I haven’t - because the number of Seal pups there. 

CRAWFORD: Ok, but let’s just separate out your reckoning of conditions that you think would be associated with White Pointer aggregation areas. And focus on where other people have said that places are ‘sharky’, regardless of why. Let’s do a tour around Stewart Island ... if you went fully around the Island, are there places that were just known to be ‘sharky’ with White Pointers? Prior to ten years ago?

YOUNG: Yeah. The Saddle. Yeah, definitely. And believe it or not, Halfmoon Bay and Horseshoe Bay - because the guys would clean fish, they’d do it in a bay called Dead Man’s, on the right as you come into Halfmoon Bay. Regularly White Pointers would appear there while they’re cleaning fish. Going back many years ago, there was a couple cruising around Butterfields. [Stuey??] and Joe Cave setnets and actually caught them.

CRAWFORD: Were you around when those nets caught those White Pointers? 

YOUNG: Yes, I was. But I wasn’t there on the days they were caught. 

CRAWFORD: Do you know where the nets were set? 

YOUNG: At Butterfields. 

CRAWFORD: Do you know how many White Pointers were caught? 

YOUNG: Two. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever hear how many animals were actually spotted?

YOUNG: No, but I can imagine that there would have been more than two.   

CRAWFORD: Did you ever hear what happened with the animals that were caught in Joe’s nets?

YOUNG: I guess the first thing that happens is they get their heads cut off and jaws cut out.

CRAWFORD: Did you hear about them having their stomachs cut open? 

YOUNG: No, no I didn’t. 

CRAWFORD: I've heard they were full of Cod frames.

YOUNG: Yeah. Well, there you go. So that works out to be perfect with Dead Man’s Bay.

CRAWFORD: It seems that incident had a lasting effect on the community for a variety of different reasons. It also gets back to that idea about Joe’s nets in general, and the idea that when White Pointers were spotted in Halfmoon or Horseshoe Bay. Some people felt that when Sharks were spotted, the nets would go out in response. It was kind of like it crossed the line. But Joe actually said no, they fished them all the time. It was more of an attempt to prevent them from getting in. When you lived in Halfmoon Bay, when you spent time living on the Island, did you get a sense that there was a perceived need to protect the bays? 

YOUNG: The children, yeah. Yeah, definitely.

CRAWFORD: Prior to ten years ago?

YOUNG: And prior to Joe catching the White Pointers as well. 

CRAWFORD: What was the first year you and Ross started fishing out of Halfmoon Bay?

YOUNG: We’d have been down in the area in the late-80s. 

CRAWFORD: And that would have been a sense in the community, even prior to that? 

YOUNG: There’s always been a thought, you know, whether at St. Kilda, whether at St. Clair, of not letting White Pointers chew up Human beings. I mean it’s just a natural instinct. And as far as most guys, they were more interested in catching one, with a bloody great hook on it with meat on it - and they did try. But it was very, very rare that they ever caught anything. They'd straightened out the hooks ...

CRAWFORD: Are you talking about guys in Halfmoon Bay? 

YOUNG: Yeah, yeah. And quite a few places. I know guys that personally targeted them, with a large hook, chain, drum. They never caught any. Or they’d get one on, and it’d just bend the hook out - and gone. 

CRAWFORD: And that was in the Bays? 

YOUNG: More around the Islands as well. 

CRAWFORD: The Titi Islands? 

YOUNG: Yeah, yeah. Both. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly when was that? 

YOUNG: That’s probably not that long ago. 2000? Yeah.

CRAWFORD: But more than ten years ago? 

YOUNG: It’s not that long ago, no. I don’t think the guy’ll want to be interviewed. 

CRAWFORD: That’s fine. 

YOUNG: But he’s definitely had many occasions, and he’s a very experienced guy, you know. He’s done lots and lots of fishing. And he’s done Shark caging off the Otago Peninsula. He would be the very first that had a Shark cage thing going. He was just taking people out for fun. He built it himself.

CRAWFORD: When you’re talking about setting drums with baited hooks to catch White Pointers, were you thinking about Halfmoon Bay, or were you thinking about Dunedin?

YOUNG: Stewart Island.

CRAWFORD: Ok. And roughly, when would that have been? 

YOUNG: It was before there was any moratorium on the protection of White Pointers. 

CRAWFORD: So, it was more than ten years ago. Because the moratorium came in, I think, just prior to the cage dive operations. 

YOUNG: Ok. Well, just before that. 

CRAWFORD: And he came down to Stewart Island ...

YOUNG: Because there was White Pointers being sighted, etcetera. And he thought, well ...

CRAWFORD: "Gotta get me one of them"? "Before protection comes in"?

YOUNG: Yeah, maybe. 

CRAWFORD: Three things that are important about that happening. Number one, that form of targeted White Pointer fishing was being used. Number two, the fact that it was happening prior to protection - and therefore prior to DOC's White Pointer tagging program, and the Shark cage tour dive operations. And Number three, that the region was already known for White Pointers. Was he fishing within Halfmoon Bay? 

YOUNG: I don’t think it was in the Bay. It was probably more like Edwards Island ...

CRAWFORD: The Titi Islands? 

YOUNG: The Titi Islands, yeah. And I mean, you’d be fully aware that when the Salmon farm would have problems with Salmon dying, they would dump them on Paterson Inlet.

CRAWFORD: Hold on to that, just hold on to that, because that will come up in a bit.

YOUNG: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: When did that guy’s Otago cage dive operation - the one for shits and giggles - do you remember roughly when that was? 

YOUNG: About the same time. Yeah, just previously. 

CRAWFORD: Twelve years ago, thirteen years ago, something like that?

YOUNG: Yeah. And he just wanted to take some photos. It was not targeting White Pointers, it was targeting Blue Sharks, because there was Blue Sharks for miles around. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. But he happened to be doing it off the Otago Peninsula? 

YOUNG: Yes. Definitely. 

CRAWFORD: And he was berleying them as well, to bring the Sharks in? 

YOUNG: Yes, definitely. Yeah. So, if there would be anything in that berley trail ... KZ-7. And then you’d have a problem! [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: Especially if it was a homemade cage! Just before we move on, prior to the DOC tagging program and cage tour diving, were the Titi Islands known then to be ‘sharky’? Specifically with White Pointers? Or is that a recent thing?

YOUNG: I think it’s more of a recent thing, because we dived them extensively. 

CRAWFORD: Well, that’s what I want to get to. You dived this whole Northeast Shore of Stewart Island, plus some.

YOUNG: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: And for all that time, when you dove the Titi Islands back in the day, did you ever see any White Pointers there? 

YOUNG: Not one. 

CRAWFORD: When you dove the Titi Islands, did your mates talk about seeing White Pointers? 

YOUNG: Not one. No one. I don’t know of anyone that’s seen a White Pointer round the Islands. 

CRAWFORD: Plenty of other places ...

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: The Saddle. Codfish.

YOUNG: Yeah, definitely. 

CRAWFORD: And Ruapuke.

YOUNG: And Ruapuke. Big-time.  

CRAWFORD: But at the time, you didn’t see any, and you didn’t hear a high density of reports from the Titi Islands, from Bench, Jacky Lee, Edwards and so on?

YOUNG: No, definitely not.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s talk about Paterson Inlet. 

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: You spent a significant amount of time in and around the Inlet? 

YOUNG: Two hundred and twenty days a year. 

CRAWFORD: You and Ross started out in Halfmoon Bay ...

YOUNG: No. This is after Ross and I went our separate ways. 

CRAWFORD: Oh, that’s right. Because you were doing Big Glory Bay, doing the work with the fish farms?

YOUNG: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Fair enough. Two hundred and twenty days a year. And of that, you had transit time to and from Halfmoon Bay. But was it the case that most of your regional experience during those days was in Big Glory Bay itself?

YOUNG: Yeah. We focused on that bay, but at other intervals, we dived the whole of Paterson Inlet as part of our work, and did surveys. As instructed by DOC.

CRAWFORD: Help me again, what was the beginning and end of that time period?   

YOUNG: 1998 to about .... Well, it did carry on after 2005, but by 2007 or so it was tapering off. 

CRAWFORD: For that period of time, did you see any White Pointers in Paterson Inlet? 

YOUNG: Not personally. 

CRAWFORD: During that time, did you hear about White Pointers in Paterson Inlet?

YOUNG: Yes, I did. 

CRAWFORD: Did the old-timers say that back in the old days, that there were White Pointers reported in Paterson Inlet? 

YOUNG: No one ever said that to me.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Tell me about what your contemporaries said, during that period of time. Some reported seeing White Pointers there?

YOUNG: I would think that the discussion would always go back to the Whaling days, and that maybe there would have been White Pointers that would have been attracted to the process right up in where the factory was, in the head of the bay.

CRAWFORD: But I thought that was a repair site, more than a Whale processing site. 

YOUNG: Well, it probably was. But I never really heard of anyone talking about White Pointers up there.

CRAWFORD: All right. Did anybody that you knew, local people in general, talk about seeing White Pointers during that period of time you were there, in Paterson Inlet? 

YOUNG: Well, in the time we were diving there, in the latter part of it, when they were dumping the morts from the Salmon farm, White Pointers were seen in the Inlet, yes.

CRAWFORD: Do you remember back during that period, and I've heard that it has changed over time, where the morts were being dumped?

YOUNG: Yep. Right on the corner of Ulva Island. There’s a deep hole there. 

CRAWFORD: Off the north-east side of Ulva?

YOUNG: No, not north ...

CRAWFORD: Let’s pull up the other chart here. Ok. On the eastern side of Ulva Island? A deep spot there?

YOUNG: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: And when you were there, that was the mort dumping ground? 

YOUNG: Yes, it was.

CRAWFORD: Did people say that White Pointers had been seen in that specific location? 

YOUNG: Yes, they did. 

CRAWFORD: Did people suspect that it was the morts, the presence of the morts, that was bringing White Pointers in to Ulva Island? 

YOUNG: They did. They did. So, they then started taking them further out ...

CRAWFORD: Were the White Pointers a reason for the fish farm taking the morts further out? 

YOUNG: I believe so. I think that was what I was told, you know.

CRAWFORD: So at least some people believed that was cause and effect? 

YOUNG: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. When the fish farms started taking the morts further, outside of Paterson Inlet, do you recall where they were being dumped in then? 

YOUNG: No. Well, I heard it was just out past the Neck.

CRAWFORD: So, just outside Paterson Inlet?

YOUNG: Yeah, in the deeper, faster channel there. 

CRAWFORD: Did you hear any indication that the dumping of morts was regulated by one of the Crown agencies?

YOUNG: I would have thought so, but I don’t know. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. The time you spent working in Big Glory Bay ...

YOUNG: Yeah. And as I said, we would cross from Golden Bay - sometimes depending on whether we would go around this way and through the Islands. Now, all that time, 220 days a year, over all those years, I never saw one White Pointer there. Never. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. 

YOUNG: We did see Sharks in Big Glory Bay. 

CRAWFORD: You did? 

YOUNG: Yes. But not White Pointers. 

CRAWFORD: What kinds of Sharks did you see there? 

YOUNG: Sevengillers.

CRAWFORD: They were attracted to the fish farm nets? Or they were just in that region? Or what?

YOUNG: I think they were just in the region, you know. They’re a scavenger, so they’d be looking for anything that was thrown out or whatever. There would possibly be, as there always was, Seals trying to get into the nets, and damage the nets. And there would probably be some bits and pieces of Salmon floating around to attract them. But I don’t know, that’s only supposition.  

CRAWFORD: In general, around Stewart Island, when you think of Seals, where are the densest aggregations of Seals? Overall, for the past 30 or 40 years? 

YOUNG: They’ve always been densest right there, on Bunker’s Island. That has been, probably for the area, the densest. But Bench would have one of the biggest populations, because it’s a much bigger island. And they are thick there. You know, we dive along this backshore there, and the Seals are just everywhere. The Bunker’s are the same, but it’s a smaller island.

CRAWFORD: What about the other northern Titi Islands? 

YOUNG: Not the same. No. 

CRAWFORD: Seals are there, but just not as much as the other islands in the chain? 

YOUNG: Yeah. They're not the same. 

CRAWFORD: Throughout the time that you were working in Paterson Inlet, were there a lot of Seals there then? 

YOUNG: No. There were a few Seals, but nothing to speak of. In my opinion, in comparison. 

CRAWFORD: Right. And that’s an important thing, because of your experience in both places. Let’s consider now the broader northeast coast of Stewart Island. Any other regions there that had dense aggregations of Seals? 

YOUNG: Yep. Right here. On the Breaksea Group ... Stirling Head, Chew Tobacco. Here.

CRAWFORD: Lots and lots of Seals over there?

YOUNG: Lots and lots. I’m just looking for Horomamae. 

YOUNG: And, this is the Breaksea Group here. Loaded with Seals. Yep. Horamamae, not quite so.

CRAWFORD: Let’s go up north from Paterson Inlet, northwest from there. Where’s the next place that you reckon was just really dense aggregation of Seals? 

YOUNG: Well, along the shore it was sporadic, you know. There wasn’t huge populations of Seals along here. Up round Gull Rock there was a few Seals. On these points, you would get Seals. But nothing remotely like on Bench and the Breaksea Group.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Keep going, please.

YOUNG: You come on round, and oh, any point like Black Rock Point, there was a few there. Nothing much along here at all. Cave Point, there’s a few. Come round through the Ruggedies, there was a few here. And then you come round way few round through North Red Head, coming down through Hellfire. Nah, bugger all Seals along there, really - in comparison. Mason’s Head, nah. You come down to the Ernest Islands here, yeah, there was Seals there, but not the same quantity. And to be honest, we didn’t do much diving on this shore here.

CRAWFORD: On the Southwest corner of Stewart Island?

YOUNG: Yeah. But then here, coming down from Lords River, just sporadic. And you come down past round Seal Point, you get quite an aggregation. Just not huge numbers. 

CRAWFORD: Very good. Did you ever work the Traps? 

YOUNG: No. No.

CRAWFORD: Ok. When we were talking before, I think you mentioned the Saddle as someplace that was ‘sharky’ - for White Pointers specifically?

YOUNG: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: And we talked about Codfish, that region over there. 

YOUNG: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: But they don’t really coincide as being, relatively speaking, places with huge numbers of Seals, right? 

YOUNG: No, definitely not. Well, when I said Codfish, we hadn’t ever seen a White Pointer here, it was over here at Hellfire. And between.

CRAWFORD: Why White Pointers in places where there aren't outrageously high numbers of Seals?

YOUNG: That is a very good question. One I can’t answer. Obviously, they swim great distances, and they might just be out for a couple of days cruising, mightn't they? Just for a look around. 

CRAWFORD: Could be. It could be that there is something else ...

YOUNG: The Solander Trough?  

CRAWFORD: Maybe attracting them to this general region where people see them? 

YOUNG: Well, the Solander Trough would be a very good reason, because of the fish life, and once you get out here to the Solander itself, huge Seal numbers. 

CRAWFORD: Is that region around the Solanders known to be ‘sharky’? White Pointers in particular?  

YOUNG: Oh, it’d have to be.

CRAWFORD: But there’s so few people out there, who would know? 

YOUNG: Only the fisherman that have fished from the bay here in the early days. Like Nick White from Riverton, he does go out there. And some of the guys, they would be able to tell you. And I should imagine that there would be, I’m only guessing. 

CRAWFORD: All right. 

YOUNG: I’ve dived there, but never seen a White Pointer. 

CRAWFORD: Dived at the Solanders? 

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Ok. One other thing - increases in the number of Seals over the past few decades. 

YOUNG: Oh, huge. 

CRAWFORD: Over the past how long, do you figure? When did it really become noticeable? 

YOUNG: Oh, it’s probably years ago. It’s not of recent times. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly when? 30 years ago, 50 years ago? 

YOUNG: Yeah, 30. 

CRAWFORD: So that’s mid-1980s. 

YOUNG: I’d probably go back a wee bit less, actually. Since it wasn’t noticeable in like, ‘75, but '85 to ‘95, yes. That’s where you’ve probably seen the biggest numbers. But I mean, as far as Sea Lions, which to me, is another indicator. Down here in Pegasus, we didn’t really see any of them when we started diving even this shore. And you hardly ever saw them up this end. 

CRAWFORD: The Breaksea Islands?

YOUNG: Hardly ever saw them there. Hardly ever saw them around Paterson Inlet. And Bench Island, which is predominantly Fur Seals, and the Bunkers. They have developed increased numbers dramatically, in the last twenty years. 

CRAWFORD: Several people have said that over the past ten years, the frequency of White Pointer-Human interactions has increased quite a bit. From an ecologist’s point of view, there are several possible factors that could account for this. And I want to kind of go through with you some of these things and get your thoughts. One possibility is that the abundance of White Pointers has gone up. That there are more White Pointers out here, and therefore the number of White Pointer-Human interactions has gone up. 

YOUNG: Well, that’s quite probable, isn’t it? 

CRAWFORD: Well, if the abundance of White Pointers is going up, it leads naturally to the question "What could account for the population abundance going up?" One thing that some people have thought of is increased food supply. But realizing, even in this discussion between you and me, we've talked about fish, wild fish, as being food. We've also talked about fish captured on longline or spearfishing or rod-and-reel as being food. We've talked about fish parts being cast off a fishing boat, or from a fish processing plant or a fish farm. But that's all still fish. And then we’ve talked about marine mammals, in particular Seals, as being food as well.

YOUNG: Yeah, definitely. 

CRAWFORD: And now, on top of everything, at the same time, you've got an increase in recreational fisheries. Day people coming over to the Islands.

YOUNG: Definitely. 

CRAWFORD: So, the dynamics could be very complex. But it's important to consider the possibility that the abundance of White Pointers by itself, first and foremost, has gone up. What do you think about that? 

YOUNG: It’s possible. The fact that we talked about the number of White Pointers perhaps in the past, had been targeted. But they’re an extremely difficult Shark to catch on a hook, as I’ve been told. In setnets, obviously, no one that’s commercially fishing wants a White Pointer in a setnet, because you’ve got a bloody major problem. And the percentage of mortalities due to those couple of items is probably infinitesimal in the big picture. I would lean more towards the fact that it’s the nutrients that are available, like Seals and fish.

CRAWFORD: Food supply. 

YOUNG: Food supply, generally. 

CRAWFORD: The other thing that you brought up, was legal protection. Because the White Pointers have been protected, it is illegal for anyone to kill them. The incidental catches in setnets or whatever, they still happen. My understanding is that DOC provisions state that you will not be charged if it is an incidental catch and you report it appropriately. 

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: There's something I wanted your opinion on. Back in the day, there were people in different places at different times and for different reasons, who said "Well, if that White Pointer crosses the line and comes into the bay ..." 

YOUNG: It’s gone. 

CRAWFORD: "we kill it." 

YOUNG: Yep. And that was a common thing. 

CRAWFORD: So, based on your experience, it was a mindset - back in the day? 

YOUNG: Absolutely. Absolutely. There was no doubt whatsoever that you’re correct in that statement. And I think most people probably had that mindset that, you know, the set of teeth looks better on the wall than around someone’s body. I think someone just caught them for jewelry, personally. 

CRAWFORD: How would they have caught them, though? 

YOUNG: Well, that’s a bloody good question. Because to really think you’re going to catch a White Pointer, you’re gonna have to attract them by berley, or you put a net out. Your chances of catching a White Pointer perhaps might increase if there’s a lot of fish in the net. 

CRAWFORD: Right. But that’s quite different than say, Joe Cave’s nets. Those nets were particularly designed to catch Sharks. Big Sharks. 

YOUNG: Yeah. Well, you look at Stewart Island, you expand it to the South Island of New Zealand, and you say "How many people actually targeted White Pointers?" It would be bugger-all, I think. Absolutely bugger-all. There would have been a few caught as by-catch in setnets over the years, definitely. 

CRAWFORD: And a few caught for trophy? 

YOUNG: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: A few caught for protection of local swimming beaches? 

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: But like you said, when you add them all up, not many - relative to the total number of White Pointers in the population. 

YOUNG: Yeah. And, were the numbers very low in those early days? Or have they always been there, and we just never saw them? 

CRAWFORD: Well, ok. That leads us now to the next part of the discussion. Given that the White Pointer-Human interactions could possibly have increased just because of an increase in the abundance of White Pointers. However, it's also possible that the abundance has stayed the same, and something else has increased the interaction rates. The New Zealand Shark scientists are strongly of the opinion that the population abundance of the White Pointers has actually gone down significantly. And yet the perception remains that the White Pointer-Human interaction rates have gone up over the past while.

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: And over the same time period, we also have more people out there on the water.

YOUNG: Definitely that as well. 

CRAWFORD: And what are your thoughts about that? I mean, where are these people coming from? What are they doing when they go out there? 

YOUNG: Well, there was a thing on television - it was on the news. The deep concern of the amount of fish taken from the ocean that’s not recorded by the recreational sector. And they were saying there’s something like thousands of boats going every day out of the North Island, fishing not recorded catch. 

CRAWFORD: They’re not required to report the catch? Or they are required, but not reporting? 

YOUNG: Not required to. But you take it to the next level. Any common equation of any management system, you must know the ingredients of what’s being removed to say it’s sustainable or isn’t sustainable. 

CRAWFORD: Even if it’s not a complete reporting, you have to have some estimates of what the harvest would be. 

YOUNG: Yes. And there are no estimates that are even close anymore, because of the huge increase in population that we’re talking about. 

CRAWFORD: Human population in the recreational fishery? 

YOUNG: Human population. Out there on the water. I’m leading up to something here. I don’t think any of those would be encroaching on the White Pointers, personally. I know there’s guys out there game fishing and all that. How many White Pointers were caught prior to the moratorium? Hardly any. So, if there was a record of how many sightings there was in those early days, when people were Codfishing, of how many Sharks were around the boat. It may have helped, but no one would have any idea whatsoever. You know, it’s like throwing darts at a dartboard with your eyes closed a bit, really. [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: But would it be fair to say, that over the past 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, that there has been a significant increase in boat traffic around the northeast side of Stewart Island? 

YOUNG: Absolutely. And we know that if there’s a White Pointer in the area, and it recognizes an engine tone ... And this goes back to your questions about the old guys. The old guys used to say this, "They know the certain tone of the certain engine of a Codboat, and they’ll follow that boat. If it was a Crayfishing boat, it goes that way, but the White Pointers follow the Codboat." 

CRAWFORD: The old-timers said that? 

YOUNG: The old-timers said that. 

CRAWFORD: That was back in the day - your early days on the Island? 

YOUNG: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: And they were talking about following behaviour?

YOUNG: They were talking about the, the White Pointer knowing ...

CRAWFORD: So, they were talking about two things. First, the White Pointer having the ability to discriminate a Codboat versus a Crayboat based on sound?

YOUNG: Right. Just by the engine. 

CRAWFORD: Also, on top of that discrimination, the White Pointer following behaviour for the Codboats specifically?

YOUNG: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. I want to go back to the increase in boat traffic generally, and in this case now, there are different reasons. The number of people that are going out on any given day, and where they go. I mean, you live and work in this region. You see these types of things?

YOUNG: Absolutely. 

CRAWFORD: Where is the bulk of that recreational day-boat traffic going out from Bluff - where are they going?

YOUNG: I would say the majority of it goes to straight to Ruapuke Island or that area, which, when you look at Ruapuke Island, it’s quite a substantial area. So here we go short distance across here to Ruapuke, instead of going across here, which is a really turbulent bit of water, and probably some of the most dangerous in the world on a bad day. So, rather than do double the distance, they just go over to this area, or around here.

CRAWFORD: All around the Ruapuke Island region?

YOUNG: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Around Dog Island ...

YOUNG: Dog Island. 

CRAWFORD: And then around the Bluff, and along the Ocean Beach side down to - 

YOUNG: Perhaps [Statehead??].

CRAWFORD: Not so much into along the Oreti Beach, or anything like that? 

YOUNG: No, well, if anyone is going to be fishing this area, they would normally come out of Riverton itself, and then come out Escape Reefs here, Centre Island here. And yeah, there’s some rocky areas. Hapuka.

CRAWFORD: This is an extremely important part of the discussion. I mean, it’s not just Ruapuke, it’s other places where day-fishermen will go, they come out of Bluff, they also come out of Riverton. Do they go over to Te Waewae Bay?

YOUNG: No, because once again, to head across this way, it’s a considerable distance. Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: It’s different going to Ruapuke than it is to the Titi Islands, partly because of distance, but partly also because of Foveaux Strait, and the unpredictability of those waters?

YOUNG: Yeah, that’s right. 

CRAWFORD: So, you've got to be a decent boater? To know what you’re doing.

YOUNG: And a reasonable vessel. But in saying that, a lot of people still go to Stewart Island. I mean, the fishing in this area, to be honest, is grossly overfished. 

CRAWFORD: Recreationally? 

YOUNG: Recreationally, and commercially. The total allowable catch that we were discussing before, which is what the Ministry of Fisheries set up, takes into no consideration that the smaller commercial boats fish this area here. 

CRAWFORD: You mean the Codpotters?

YOUNG: The Cod ones, yeah, the Codpotters. And the bigger ones, they come all around Stewart Island, come right up here to [Paseka Point??], etcetera. But the total catch, I think, was fifteen hundred tonnes when it was set out for Blue Cod in this area. Which, in theory, had it been fished all down here ...

CRAWFORD: Down to the Traps? 

YOUNG: The Traps, the Snares, right up to the West Coast of Preservation Inlet, and all that. It probably was marginally sustainable even then. But the fact that you’ve got the concentration in a smaller area by commercial boats, then in the last 50 years, well ... let’s talk the allocation of quota. It was in the '80s that they set the TACs based on your catch history, and then allocated it after that. I’m not sure the exact date for Blue Cod, but they were always behind the eight-ball. And of course with the introduction of small, fast boats, and the recreational sector, they were probably taking close to the commercial takers.

CRAWFORD: In the Foveaux Strait region? 

YOUNG: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: That's a good point, an important point - for two very different and potentially important reasons. Number one, it’s possible that harvest could have an indirect effect on White Pointers in terms of forage fish. Although my understanding is that in general, White Pointers, while they may be attracted to the smell, and/or the action of a fish on a line or something, that free-swimming Blue Cod are probably down fairly low on their list of their preferred species. More preferred, oily fish like Tuna, and Salmon, species like that. But getting back to that increase in recreational fishing in the Foveaux Strait region, both on the south shore of the South Island, around Ruapuke over to the back end of ...

YOUNG: Riverton, Colac Bay area, Centre Island.

CRAWFORD: Right. And the increase of recreational fishing in that region, means increases in the number of boats, with the number of Human beings and the number of eyes observing things. But it also increases the number of lines in the water, and the number of struggling fish on the ends of those lines. The number of Shark-boat interactions, and the number of Shark-fish-on-line interactions associated with that increase in the recreational fishing, those could both accounted for increases in the frequency of White Pointer observations over the past years.

YOUNG: More sightings, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Increased sightings, but also increased encounters and interactions. 

YOUNG: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: And as an ecologist, the difficulty is in teasing apart these different contributing factors. Changes in White Pointer abundance, changes in the number of eyes or observations, plus changes in the stimuli associated with the recreational fishing. Your thoughts on that before I go on? 

YOUNG: Yeah, ok. So, we’re Pāua diving at Edwards Island, the Shark cage diving is carrying on, and there’s a tour boat there that takes recreational fishers out from Stewart Island; this is in the last three years. And he’s fishing out off the end of Edwards Island, and a White Pointer comes swimming around the boat, and he’s quite concerned because he knows we’re Pāua diving only like 300 meters from him. So he comes over to us, to say “Look, you should get out of the water. There’s a White Pointer been following our lines."

CRAWFORD: Handlines? Or rod-and-reel?

YOUNG: Yeah, rod-and-reel. But I would have thought that was not a great idea to do, because the Shark was probably still following the engine noise and he was bringing it to us. Just a thought.

CRAWFORD: Have you heard of, or have you seen, increased boat traffic around the Titi Islands - especially the day-trippers - over the past ten to twenty years? 

YOUNG: Oh, absolutely. Hugely increased. 

CRAWFORD: So even though most of the people would be taking the shorter and safer trip over to Ruapuke, there are, there has been an increase, a significant increase in the number of people day boating all the way over to the Titi Islands and Stewart Island? 

YOUNG: Yes. Significant. 

CRAWFORD: Why are they coming over? 

YOUNG: Cause it’s a nice day, and they probably feel that the fishing is likely to be better cause there’s less pressure on those islands than there is around Ruapuke. Well, that’s not well-founded, I can assure you, because a lot of it’s had immense pressure. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Have you heard about people leaving Bluff on day-trips specifically to go see the White Pointers at the Titi Islands? 

YOUNG: I have, but not a lot. Not a lot. And they’ve normally gone to the vessels that are going out commercially out there. 

CRAWFORD: Which vessels? Doing what commercially? 

YOUNG: The Shark-cage operations. They’ve purposefully deviated from their course to go over to them.

CRAWFORD: I see, and kind of go in the proximity of the cage tour dive operations? And maybe see an animal that is circling around the tour dive boat?

YOUNG: That’s right.  

CRAWFORD: Ok. Have you heard about anybody in the Foveaux Strait region who has gone out themselves specifically to have an encounter, an observation with a White Pointer? With a box of fish or Cod-frames, or something else? To do a little private berleying session? 

YOUNG: No, I haven’t. Not personally. 

CRAWFORD: All right. Last question before we get into the third and final part of the interview on the effects of Shark cage tour dive operations. Do you think that there has been a shift in the White Pointers’ aggregation around this region generally, Foveaux Strait, Stewart Island. Such that ten+ years ago they really weren’t out at the Titi Islands, and now they are? 

YOUNG: Correct. I agree. 

CRAWFORD: Based on your experience, when was the transition from ‘not so much’ to ‘yeah so much’. When would that transition have started? 

YOUNG: Well, the sightings are only because they’ve been attracted to berley bait, whatever you want to call it, to a certain area. And it’s no different from them following a Codboat than following a Shark cage boat. 

4. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - DIRECT EXPERIENCES

CRAWFORD: Let's focus on your Dunedin years. The activities around the Otago Peninsula. And I'm thinking before the spearfishing competitions really took off. You spent an enormous amount of time in waters just North of the Otago Peninsula, all the way around the Head, southern end of the Peninsula, off St. Clair, St. Kilda. If I was counting right that would've been about 10 or 15 years?

YOUNG: Yeah, it would be. 

CRAWFORD: In that period of time did you see any White Pointers there?

YOUNG: Yes. Yes.

CRAWFORD: What was the first time that you remember seeing a White Pointer in the wild?

YOUNG: Probably at Shag Point, actually. The first time.

CRAWFORD: How old would you have been, roughly?

YOUNG: I would've only been in my younger years. Because we went up there to go for a dive. There was a lot of Salmon fishing, right on the point ... Well, it was more Moeraki headland that I'm talking of, not Shag Point itself. I'm wrong there. Because it was at the Moeraki lighthouse. And people did a lot of Salmon fishing there. They'd get their lures caught up, and we thought we'd go and dive for the lures this day. We were just getting organized to go out, and this bloody massive White Pointer had just come along the edge of the Bull Kelp. Just cruised along. We hadn't even got in the water.

CRAWFORD: Alright. You said early days. This is like late teens or early 20s? Something like that?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: It was a shore dive. Do you remember the time of year?

YOUNG: Yeah, it would have been when the Salmon were running which was about now. [approximately February]

CRAWFORD: How far do you reckon this animal was offshore? So there was a kelp bed ... 

YOUNG: Like I mean that's no distance, is it? Maybe four metres away, five metres?

CRAWFORD: Based on your response to the question I asked you before, you know about old-timers taking you aside and saying you had to be careful here or there ... Did it come as a surprise to see this White Pointer there?

YOUNG: It did, yeah. I can remember "Wow, that's big!" It was not being aggressive in any way. It was just quietly swimming along the surface.

CRAWFORD: That first White Pointer that you saw at Moeraki, where would you have put that animal on this scale?

YOUNG: Not being in the water with it, but I would say at the very lowest level.

CRAWFORD: So, Level 1?

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Ok. That was your first White Pointer. Roughly, over the course of your entire life, how many White Pointers have you seen in the wild? Plus-minus?

YOUNG: Oh ...

CRAWFORD: Are we in the 5 - 10 region?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: If you had to guess, when you said that Moeraki White Pointer was a big animal, and it was the first one so it's kind of hard to judge, but if you had to guess how big would it have been?

YOUNG: Three metres.

CRAWFORD: Let's go now to the time that you spent around the Otago Peninsula. Did you see any White Pointers specifically around there?

YOUNG: Look, my memory isn't perfect, but ... Ross and I were going for a dive at Aramoana Mole, and we seen one. Just going to get into the water again - or no, I think we had just gotten out of the water on the Mole. Pretty much the same scenario. Level 1. He just come along the edge of the kelp, close in. Maybe three or four metres away.

CRAWFORD: This time, I'm going to ask you for the year? If it was you and Ross ... 

YOUNG: It's got to be 40 years ago. I was in my 20s, and I'm 66 now, so say I would've been about 26 years old.

CRAWFORD: Mid-1970s?

YOUNG: Yep, somewhere around there.

CRAWFORD: Getting back to the White Pointer you saw at the Aramoana Mole, do you remember the time of year for that one, roughly?

YOUNG: Look, I don't know. We did get Crayfish there, and the Crayfish come in during the summer months. Obviously, that leads you to believe that it's probably when it was.

CRAWFORD: Right. And we've already established that it was a Level 1. You said it was the same as at Moeraki Point?

YOUNG: Definitely.

CRAWFORD: And the size of the animal at the Mole compared to Moeraki Point?

YOUNG: Maybe not quite as big. The one at Moeraki, it looked really fat. Big girth on it. This one (at the Mole), I felt, didn't look quite as big. But it was definitely a bloody big Shark.

CRAWFORD: Ok. That's one White Pointer around the Otago Peninsula during the years that you spent time spearfishing around there. Did you see any others in that region?

YOUNG: Ross and I, we'd see Blue Sharks ... One day, yes - we'd been spearfishing. Ross wasn't with me this day, because I remember it vividly. We had the little boat, and we come around, and it was by Gull Rock, which is offshore a wee bit.

CRAWFORD: Offshore of Cape Saunders?

YOUNG: Back from the Cape. There's the light there. And it was back this way from the light. South and west from there.

CRAWFORD: You were travelling, or you had been spearfishing already?

YOUNG: We had been spearfishing, and we stopped to have a fish. And it just came up. It wasn't a big Shark, but it come right up beside the boat, and actually put its head out of the water about yea much.

CRAWFORD: About half a metre?

YOUNG: That would be about half a metre, yeah. But it definitely wasn't as big as the other Sharks that we had seen.

CRAWFORD: This smaller Shark, it came up vertically?

YOUNG: Angled. Like that.

CRAWFORD: Enough that the eye was out of the water?

YOUNG: Yes, it was. It was looking straight at us. Definitely, there was no doubt whatsoever.

CRAWFORD: What kind of boat were you in at the time?

YOUNG: A 14-foot aluminium boat. Had it been aggressive, it could have tipped the boat over quite easy. Those aluminium boats were quite unstable.

CRAWFORD: You said it was a smaller White Pointer?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: I realize it's difficult, but if you had to guess its length?

YOUNG: It would struggle to be 3 metres. The head on it wasn't enormous.

CRAWFORD: So less than 3 metres?

YOUNG: Oh, I would say less than 3 metres. But I've seen massive White Pointers, I can tell you.

CRAWFORD: In terms of time of year for that little Shark? Any guess on that one?

YOUNG: Summer. Definitely. Because I had an accident ... I had such a [frigging] fright. I come backwards, and I actually fell over in the boat, after seeing the animal poke its head out of the water. And my spear was in the bottom of the boat, and it went right in through my knee, and under my kneecap. And I had to go to hospital. Anyway, we went back to the fishing club, and I was thinking "I've gotta get to the hospital." And it was still daylight, so it was later in the evening. Yeah.

CRAWFORD: This would've happened in the summertime? Sometime in the afternoon?

YOUNG: Afternoon. Definite.

CRAWFORD: I wonder if that one got recorded as a Shark related injury? [chuckles]

YOUNG: No, I got a fright. I fell over. [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: A couple follow-up questions, specifically with regards to the Otago Peninsula. Did the old-timers, or the local people, ever talk to you about the Peninsula being ‘sharky’?

YOUNG: Yeah, maybe a little bit more than Karitane. But look, to be honest, Ross and I, we did that much diving, there can't have been that many White Pointers around, otherwise we would have seen them. And that's honest.

CRAWFORD: Alright, but it might turn out that there were a lot more there that you didn't see. You have fished in, what have turned out to be, White Pointer-rich waters of New Zealand. Not just Otago Peninsula but also Chatham Islands, and Stewart Island. 

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Ok, any other observations of White Pointers around the Otago Peninsula, including waters extending down to the Taeiri Mouth region?

YOUNG: Only White Island.

CRAWFORD: Roughly, how old were you for that one?

YOUNG: I was getting on a bit then. I'd have been in my late 20s, maybe early 30s.

CRAWFORD: Summertime? Wintertime?

YOUNG: Definitely summertime. I was diving, and another guy who is now deceased, he was diving out further. And the water was gin clear. And this big Shark, I'm assuming - I can't guarantee it was a White Pointer, because it was at range, and it was just a big Shark. It just swam on through right past him and carried on.

CRAWFORD: Past him, not past you?

YOUNG: Not past me. He was a long way away from me. He was probably, I would say 30 metres away. Because that's how good the visibility was.

CRAWFORD: So your mate was 30 metres away from you.

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: And this Shark, not necessarily a White Pointer, but a big Shark - and few animals get that big ...

YOUNG: Yes, it was too far away from me to be totally distinctive of what type of Shark it was. But it was a large Shark, and it swum just past him, and carried on.

CRAWFORD: The point is, for you it was a Level 1 observation.

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: But it was a Level 1 of, for your mate it would have been a Level 2 Swim-By?

YOUNG: He never saw it. Hasn't seen it to this day.

CRAWFORD: That's amazing. It was above, or behind?

YOUNG: It was behind, and below.

CRAWFORD: And it just casually swam by. So, it was a classic Swim-By?

YOUNG: Yep. Definitely. Just carried on.

CRAWFORD: See, that's what I mean. The possibility that these animals are in close proximity, and you would never even know. That might be the best example that I've heard yet in any of these interviews.

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: It's only because you happened to be there, seeing it the way that you did.

YOUNG: And because the visibility was good.

CRAWFORD: Yeah.

YOUNG: We can go back to Shag Point, because about this same period diving up there, and I seen the tail of a Shark - I have no idea what type of Shark it was. But there was half a Seal laying on the bottom. I thought "I'm outta here!"

CRAWFORD: When was this? During your early spearfishing days?

YOUNG: No, we were diving for Crayfish. And I was on a tank, and it was about 40 feet of water. I was swimming along as the reef dropped down, like that, and there was a bit of a ledge. And I was swimming along, and I seen the tail of the Shark. "Oh shit." So I swam on. Visibility wasn't good. And here's a Seal - just half of it there.

CRAWFORD: Bleeding?

YOUNG: No. That Shark had definitely not bitten it.

CRAWFORD: That Seal had been around for a while?

YOUNG: That Seal had been on the bottom for some time. Because there was no blood.

CRAWFORD: Ok. It was a reasonably fresh carcass. It wasn't rotting?

YOUNG: No, no. It was reasonably fresh. But I'm thinking to myself "I'm outta here!"

CRAWFORD: And then you left the water.

YOUNG: Yeah. But I've got a story for you, where I did have another Shark come around.

CRAWFORD: Was it in this region?

YOUNG: It was at Ruapuke.

CRAWFORD: By Shark, do you mean a White Pointer?

YOUNG: No, it wasn't a White Pointer, because I swam right up to it.

CRAWFORD: Roughly, when was this?

YOUNG: Two years ago.

CRAWFORD: So, recent?

YOUNG: Very recent, yeah.

CRAWFORD: What happened?

YOUNG: I was spearfishing, and putting the fish in a - what they call a [Muppet bag??], you just squeeze it, and it flops open, you break the neck of the fish, and put it in the bag, because the blood's running out of the fish. Then I'd carry on, spear another fish, put it in the bag. So, you have to swim back to your catch bag that's hanging on the float on the surface, and put your fish in it. The next thing, I was caught on something. And I'm yanking, and I'm yanking. The visibility wasn't great. So I swim back, and as I'm getting closer I see this bloody great Sevengiller hanging on the catch bag, ripping it back and forwards trying to rip the fish out of the bag. And I just yank, yank, yank. And he sort of got pissed off with that. So I got the bag, and I climbed out. I thought "Oh, bugger this. He's going to bite me if I keep this up." So, that was that.

CRAWFORD: That was Ruapuke, two years ago - summertime?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Back to your early spearfishing days, in your 20s and 30s - did you ever see any White Pointers in that region, between eastern Stewart Island and Ruapuke?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: How many, roughly?

YOUNG: This was when we did the trips, the club trips to Ruapuke, and stayed with Mason. It was just generally spearfishing.

CRAWFORD: And roughly when was that? In the '80s?

YOUNG: Yeah, in that period. 

CRAWFORD: Summertime?

YOUNG: Definitely summertime. We were out at the Hazelburghs, and we'd been catching a few Crayfish. My wife and a doctor lady were having a swim, just round in this bay at the Hazelburghs, and I'd speared a Moki. I was coming back to the surface, and this White Pointer just come cruising up out of the deep. Swum past me, circle, and then he come back. And I thought "Ahh, shit." I was still coming up, I just had the handspear, and the fish was still on it - and I just rammed it into his head. It was like hitting a brick wall. It didn't go flying away, it just cruised on past. I threw the fish and the spear down, and he come round and just circled away towards the fish that was still wriggling on the spear.

CRAWFORD: Circled away, but down?

YOUNG: Yeah. After I hit him, he swam away. But then he came back. But by the time he'd come back, I'd already realized that it was the fish on the spear that was the problem. So I threw that away, and he just curved around. By this stage, I'm just breaking the surface, and I wasn't interested anymore in what was going on, because the boat was just over there. Mason came straight over and grabbed me, and I climbed on the boat. Well they pulled me on the boat, bodily. I went back two days later just to see if my spear was on the bottom, and it was. But it was all chewed up. He'd obviously grabbed it, and given it a shake because it was buggered.

CRAWFORD: Did you keep it? The spear?

YOUNG: No, I didn't, actually. I should have, shouldn't I? Should have had it on the wall. [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: I think you should have. In terms of the levels, it would seem that's definitely Level 3, because the animal came to you. You had a struggling Moki on a spear.

YOUNG: But I bashed into his head.

CRAWFORD: It was so close to you that, you pushed the spear into its head. It didn't take off?

YOUNG: It doesn't zoom off, no. It swims off, comes back.

CRAWFORD: Not showing interest in you.

YOUNG: No.

CRAWFORD: But showing interest in the fish, still?

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: I realize this is a close encounter of the most intimate kind, but do you remember thinking - if you had to guess - how big this animal would have been? Relative to the other animals you've seen. And you've seen many things underwater.

YOUNG: Yeah, I've seen a lot bigger White Pointers than this one, I can guarantee you that. It might've been maybe 3 metres long. Maybe.

CRAWFORD: Any idea if it was male or female?

YOUNG: No. I was shitting myself.

CRAWFORD: Final question on that incident. The crew, the people on the boat ...

YOUNG: Mason and [Stan Hirodi??].

CRAWFORD: Did they see any of this going on?

YOUNG: No, they just heard me yell when I broke the surface.

CRAWFORD: Were you reasonably nearby?

YOUNG: Yeah, reasonably nearby. And I said "Help! Get over here!" And they just come over. I didn't have to say anything, because they knew exactly.

CRAWFORD: These are guys that live on the island?

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: They know those waters better than anybody.

YOUNG: Absolutely. And Mason had been a fisherman all his life. He was retired at this stage. You wouldn't know how many White Pointers he'd seen in his life.

CRAWFORD: Was there another instance where you saw a White Pointer in the Stewart Island region?

YOUNG: Definitely. The Saddle. That would have been probably mid-90s, '95 '96. Something like that. We were ... That's Saddle Point there. Saddle Point is fairly renowned, and you do hear fishermen talking about seeing White Pointers at the Saddle. It's a well-known fact that guys have seen them there.

CRAWFORD: And this was back in the day? Back in the '90s?

YOUNG: Yeah, that's been general. General, over a period of time. I wouldn't know how many times it's been said to me, but there's been sightings of White Pointers there.

CRAWFORD: And what is it that people reckon is the reason for the White Pointers to be there? At the Saddle?

YOUNG: It's a huge tidal area. Where the tide cuts off the point. So, I guess the nutrients are there. But this day, I was just back from the Saddle, and I was Pāua diving, and the dinghy person was Bronwyn. I grabbed the speargun because there was these big fat Blue Cod down there, in amongst where I was getting my Pāuas. So, I speared a couple, and put them in the dinghy, and she'd cut the guts out of them, throw them over the side very nicely for me. So anyway, I'm on the bottom back Pāua diving. No speargun. And "Ah shit." Here's this bloody great Shark coming up out of the gloom, in about 25 feet of water towards me. Sure enough, he just comes right up, cruises past me, goes away. And I thought "Don't panic. Don't panic. Just stay still." I just stayed on the bottom.

CRAWFORD: You were freediving?

YOUNG: Freediving.

CRAWFORD: You were holding your breath when all this is happening?

YOUNG: Yeah, yeah. And shitting myself. So, I just stayed there, stayed there. Come to the surface. And that was it.

CRAWFORD: So, the animal came up ...

YOUNG: Come right up to me.

CRAWFORD: Up - to you?

YOUNG: Just slightly angling off the bottom, and come up, and around, and away. That was it. Nothing else.

CRAWFORD: Well, that's got to be a Level 2 Swim-By.

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Was there any indication that the animal was responding to the blood or the guts at the surface?

YOUNG: I don't know.

CRAWFORD: You were at 20 feet.

YOUNG: Maybe 25 feet. But maybe it was the initial twang of the speargun previously. I've shot two fish, put them in the dinghy. Bronwyn's gutted them, and thrown the shit off the top of me. But when the speargun goes off underwater, there's a real clang when it fires. So maybe it was that noise. And then the fish going 'whrrrrrr' on the end of the shaft. I know from experiences up in the islands, the Sharks up there - soon as they hear a speargun, bang and there there.

CRAWFORD: When you say 'the islands' you mean Marlborough Sound?

YOUNG: No, no, no. Solomons, and New Guinea, and places like that. They're there instantly. So, they know what the twang of a speargun is.

CRAWFORD: And there's no reason to believe that a White Pointer would be any different from those other kinds of Sharks?

YOUNG: No reason whatsoever. Because it's unusual to them, and then there's the vibration of the fish. So, yeah. That was just the Swim-By. It's hard to predict how big that Shark was when you're down there, because you're really quite ...

CRAWFORD: You're taken aback. You're in a state where this could be life and death.

YOUNG: Well, you just say "Don't do anything wrong. Just stay still. Compose yourself, because you got to conserve all your breath, because you can to be staying down here for a while if he comes back a second time." You can't swim to the surface, can you? You gotta stay on the bottom. That's my theory, anyway. Stay on the bottom. So, I just hung onto the bottom, hung onto the bottom. After a bit, "I've gotta go. Can't hold my breath any longer."

CRAWFORD: And you don't know what happened? The animal still could have been in the region.

YOUNG: Could have been.

CRAWFORD: But you got out of the water...

YOUNG: Gone. [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: How far from shore were you? Do you reckon, roughly.

YOUNG: Probably 50, 80 metres.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Any other instances when you have seen White Pointers around Stewart Island, Foveaux Strait?

YOUNG: I was saving the best for last.

CRAWFORD: Ok. What year was it, roughly?

YOUNG: It was when they had the Publicans Fisherman's Competitions at Stewart Island. So, we were commercially Pāua diving at the time. And I volunteered my boat for these couple of fishermen to use. The year? Jesus, I don't know.

CRAWFORD: Roughly.

YOUNG: It's gotta be in the '90s. Could have even been the late-90s.

CRAWFORD: What time of year?

YOUNG: Summertime again. Definitely summertime. We went out to Bench Island. And we were right on that inside point where the current runs, and just in a wee bit. And we had some berley going there. I had a 7 metre boat ...

CRAWFORD: Why did you have berley going?

YOUNG: Because they wanted to get a competitive fish for the Publicans Fishing Competition. 

CRAWFORD: This is a rod-and-reel fishing competition, everybody's in a boat angling?

YOUNG: Yep. Anyway, next thing all these Gulls lift off the berley trail. And I thought "Oh oh, something's coming." Next thing this bloody - it never broke the surface, this Shark. And I mean, my boat is probably 1.8 metres wide, or something like that. And I swear that the Shark was as wide as the boat. I reckon it was 17, 18, 19 foot long. It was just frigging massive.

CRAWFORD: And it came up the berley trail?

YOUNG: It came up. The birds lifted.

CRAWFORD: Right. But it came from the direction that the berley trail was flowing?

YOUNG: Yes. And then it circled out, and it come round under the back of the boat. When it come up I'm thinking "Far out! This things like, massive! Just absolutely massive!" And that was it. Gone.

CRAWFORD: Sounds like it was Level 2 Swim-By or a Level 3 Interest? 

YOUNG: Well, it was interested in what was going on, definitely.

CRAWFORD: Right. But not a Level 4.

YOUNG: No, because it didn’t come out of the water, didn’t attack the engine or the boat. Which, I’ve heard about from various ones at Stewart Island.

CRAWFORD: You said that your vessel was 1.8 metres wide. What was the length of that boat? Roughly.

YOUNG: 23 feet.

CRAWFORD: Relative to the length of your 23-footer...

YOUNG: I figured it was as big as the frigging boat, that's what I thought. Both lengthwise and widthwise. It was not smaller than 17 or 18 feet, I can guarantee you that. And probably bigger, but it never broke the surface.

CRAWFORD: Your figured it circled once and took off?

YOUNG: Oh, I don't think so. Probably stayed a bit longer. When we were there, we had our lines down and that. And I said "Get your lines out of the water." And the time we mucked around, we would've been drifting a bit, and all the rest.

CRAWFORD: So, how long do you figure the Shark was around? A couple of minutes?

YOUNG: Yep. About that. A minute, a minute and 1/2. It wasn't long.

CRAWFORD: What kind of berley were you using?

YOUNG: Oh God. I can't even remember. It would be Tuna probably.

CRAWFORD: And were you Tuna-berleying specifically to catch Sharks?

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: What kind of Sharks were you targeting?

YOUNG: Well, we caught a Mako just after that. We went from one end of the island ...

CRAWFORD: Bench Island?

YOUNG: Bench Island. Round to the other end of it. And Sal caught a Mako straight away.

CRAWFORD: Did that Mako come up to the surface?

YOUNG: Yes it did.

CRAWFORD: I guess that's a characteristic behaviour for them?

YOUNG: Yep, Yep.

CRAWFORD: Did you see any other White Pointers? That day?

YOUNG: No. But it was a focal talking point, I can tell you that.

CRAWFORD: Yes, I bet it was.

5. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS

CRAWFORD: Do you remember the Shark attacks on the Otago Peninsula back in the '60s?

YOUNG: 1962. Was Graham Hitt.

CRAWFORD: We've got St. Clair, St. Kilda ...

YOUNG: Yes. The Hitt attack was at the Aramoana Mole.

CRAWFORD: What do you remember hearing about that attack?

YOUNG: I was pretty horrified. That was at the very early stage of my diving. And I just thought, "Oh, I bet that was horrible." I spoke to the guy that actually swam out and grabbed him, and brought him in - Colin. He was a seriously game guy, because the guy was bleeding profusely, and he swam out and rescued him, and brought him back to the Mole.

CRAWFORD: What do you remember hearing about the circumstances of the attack? What was happening prior to the attack?

YOUNG: Spearfishing, I think.

CRAWFORD: Did you hear any more of the particulars?

YOUNG: No, I didn't.

CRAWFORD: It was a severe laceration.

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: But not taken?

YOUNG: Not taken, no. No, he was left. Colin Wilson, he swam out and brought him back into the shore. And the White Pointer was obviously still there while it was all happening, wasn't it? He obviously wasn't hungry, he just chomped him, and that was that.

CRAWFORD: You said you heard Graham was spearfishing at the time?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: That's the point I'm trying to get to. That's you. You're a spearfisherman.

YOUNG: Yeah, definitely.

CRAWFORD: News of that attack - did it change the way you did things? Did you not do things in some ways, or go to different locations?

YOUNG: A little bit more string on the float to tow the fish.

CRAWFORD: I mean, you were spearfishing in that region at that time - in those years.

YOUNG: Not as much as we did in later years, maybe. Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Any other White Pointer incidents with Humans that you recall?

YOUNG: [There was another incident off Stewart Island at] Codfish, yeah. Hellfire. This is when you asked if I seen it, but it wasn't me. It was a guy that was with me diving, that seen it.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Tell me about it.

YOUNG: Pāua diving, and this Shark swam past him. Same story. No aggression, just swam past him.

CRAWFORD: So it was a Level 2 Swim-By?

YOUNG: Had a look, and that was it. No swinging around, or aggression. Nothing.

CRAWFORD: Didn't come back?

YOUNG: Didn't come back.

CRAWFORD: You guys were freediving for Pāua?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: Roughly, what depth of water?

YOUNG: Twenty, thirty feet. We were offshore a bit.

CRAWFORD: Nearby any Seal colonies, or anything like that?

YOUNG: There's not really a lot of places around there that there isn't Seals, but they're not real colonies. Their sporadic, really. Around there. Apart from, I suppose, some points that have got a few more on them, which is normal. But on the same day ... I don't know if you've talked to Russell Keen, 'Rastus' - they were coming back as well. And he said "Fuck that, we're not diving anymore. We just had a bloody White Pointer cruising around us!" So, they just gave it away as well.

CRAWFORD: You reckon that could've been the same animal?

YOUNG: We discounted that, because it was just far enough away. But we know they can bloody move. Maybe it was, I don't know.

CRAWFORD: When you say 'we know they can bloody move' what do you mean?

YOUNG: Well, if you see any footage of a White Pointer when it's actually swimming. They can move quite fast. Generally, they just cruise along. But even at cruising along as they do, they cover quite a distance. I don't know how many knots they would be swimming at, but I should imagine that to go from one bay to the next bay is going to be pretty easy for them. It is possible, but we sort of discounted it. "Ah no, it wouldn't be the same one. It would be another one."

CRAWFORD: To answer your question, yes I did interview Rastus. And yes, I've heard that remarkable story of his.

YOUNG: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Back to the Shark that your mate saw, you were diving at the time?

YOUNG: Yep. And I didn't see it.

CRAWFORD: You would've been within, maybe 30 or 40 metres?

YOUNG: Yep. Yep.

CRAWFORD: And once again, a significant sized animal comes cruising by. And you didn't see it.

YOUNG: No. Definitely not. But there was another day, we were diving on the mainland here at Waipapa Point. 

CRAWFORD: Just at the southern end of the Catlins?

YOUNG: Yep. There's a bay there, once again, two of the guys had encounters.

CRAWFORD: Roughly, when was that?

YOUNG: When we started diving up there. So that would have been about 1990.

CRAWFORD: Summertime again?

YOUNG: Yes. [Trevor Dyck?? and Kevin Parker??] were the guys.

CRAWFORD: Tankdiving, or freediving?

YOUNG: Freediving, Pāua diving.

CRAWFORD: Commercial Pāua diving?

YOUNG: Yep.

CRAWFORD: And you were there?

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: You were in the dinghy?

YOUNG: I was diving as well. I never seen anything.

CRAWFORD: Using our Interaction Levels, what would you say?

YOUNG: Swim-By. Dirty water. Yep, they just swam past.

6. effects of cage tour dive operations

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s move into the final part of the interview now, the effects of Shark cage tour dive operations. First thing. Do you think that Shark cage tour dive operations have had an important and lasting effect on the Sharks, and the Shark-Human interactions?

YOUNG: In what context? 

CRAWFORD: Any context you choose. 

YOUNG: Well, obviously you’ve got to look at ... they’re intelligent, they know an easy feed is a good feed. So yes, it’s going to change their habits to follow that food source. The next problem with that, I believe, and this is definite, that they are given food easily. Sometimes it’s removed to aggravate them, and change their attitude. And that in turn gets them aggro, to give more benefit to a viewer who’s there to pay the money to see these things.

CRAWFORD: Do you know where the Shark cage dive boats go? 

YOUNG: You’re referring to where they go to stop? 

CRAWFORD: Yes.

YOUNG: Yeah, Edwards Island is the target area. 

CRAWFORD: Right. And they're in the second of a two-year permit from DOC. Prior to that, it was really kind of open in many regards. It wasn’t really a regulated activity, so they didn't have specific conditions on where they went or what they did when they got there.

YOUNG: But had you been involved and privy to the discussions we had with the Department ... this is because I’m part of an organization called the Pāua Industry Council. We endeavored to get DOC and the cage operators into dialogue to try and get some resolve, so they weren’t operating within such a close proximity to where people would be having recreational activities. And we suggested that because other places in the world, it was recognized as risky to be close to areas where there was lots of people. Most of these other areas, they were told "Well no, you can’t have a permit to do it here, but you can do it a long way from any populated area, and possibly with the same results, you’re going to wind up with White Pointers around your boat." We were really disappointed with the Department of Conservation, and other negotiations that we tried to get into with the government. And at this point, the Pāua Industry has taken DOC to court. 

CRAWFORD: Let’s back up for just a second. When were those attempts made from the Pāua Industry to engage with DOC as the managing agency and the operators, in order to have a discussion about terms and conditions? 

YOUNG: This has been going on for several years. 

CRAWFORD: Back five years, or more?

YOUNG: Yeah. And I’m only guessing that it is that long. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah, that’s fine. It’s not just the last couple of years?

YOUNG: Oh no, definitely not. I have been face-to-face with DOC at those meetings, representing the Pāua Industry. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. In terms of the permit that was finally established by DOC, it began the beginning of last season, and it was a two-year permit.  

YOUNG: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: Have you seen the conditions of that permit? 

YOUNG: I have read it briefly, but Storm Stanley from the Pāua Industry Council who represents us guys, he’s been really in-depth with those requirements. 

CRAWFORD: Terms and conditions. 

YOUNG: Terms and conditions. And it’s been brought to our attention by some legal advice, that they don’t actually fit within the criteria of some legal obligations that the government requires for health and safety of other people. 

CRAWFORD: As I understand it, the Pāua Industry’s court challenge of DOC is that the permit doesn’t take into account people who are not directly involved in the cage tour dive operations. My understanding is that DOC’s argument is that their mandate is to focus on the protection of the species, of the White Pointer - and of the people that are immediately involved in the cage tour dive operation, so the operator and their clients, the people who are getting in the cage. My understanding from talking to Storm is that the argument raised by the industry is that there is an additional important responsibility that the Crown has with regards to health and safety of other people who are perhaps outside of the immediate location and/or time of the activity, but who are using those waters for recreation, or in the case of many of the Pāua divers, for commerce. Is that kind of your understanding? 

YOUNG: That’s correct. And it’s the wider issue that we also feel that hasn’t been addressed as well. The wider issue is all the other users of the resource. Now, you know, we’re getting a bit deep here, I don’t know whether you want this?

CRAWFORD: We’ll, we’ll pull back up, because the focus of my research is not on the management decision-making per se. But I realize that my work has important management implications. It was good that you brought that up, because it raises the context first of all, that you personally have more than a passing familiarity with the permit. Many of the people I’ve talked to, they might know there’s a permit in place, but for instance, wouldn’t have known what the conditions were, or wouldn’t have been involved directly with DOC about what the nature of those terms and conditions should be. So in that regard, you’re higher up in terms of information level than most people. But let's get back to establishing a common understanding, so we can have the rest of the discussion about what the potential effects are. So yes, the permit is specific to Edwards Island. Prior to the permit period, there wasn’t any restriction on location, but as I understand it they still were, for the most part focusing on Bench and Edwards. 

YOUNG: That’s right. 

CRAWFORD: Two nearby islands that were desirable, partly for boating reasons, in terms of protection from the wind, and partly for the ability to consistently draw in White Pointers on a berley trail. Obviously those two things combined. So, the operators arrive in proximity to Edwards Island, they anchor, what’s the next thing that would happen, you reckon, in terms of the operation, if we go sequentially? 

YOUNG: Well, knowing what we’ve already discussed, they probably have a certain amount of berley ready to go, which will be put over the side, in knowledge that probably, a White Pointer if it’s in the area - or several of them - have heard the engine tones of the vessels arriving so they’re saying "Lunch is on its way. Ah, I can smell something. Maybe it’s just about ready." 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s leave the sound of the boat for a second. I promise it will come back in. But in terms of the sequence - they arrive on station, they anchor, set up a berley trail ...

YOUNG: Obviously they put the cage in.

CRAWFORD: Ok, the cage is in, the people are ready, they have their gear, if they see a White Pointer, people go in the cage.

YOUNG: That’s right. 

CRAWFORD: They have a throw bait on a line, but the permit says the animals are not supposed to be fed. So, the throw bait is used in order to bring a White Pointer into proximity of the cage, rather than it just circling around at a distance. Realizing that throw bait can be taken, under some circumstances by a Shark. There are provisions in the second version of the permit, for the total number of throw baits that can be used on a given day - that type of thing. But the operators are prohibited from feeding the Sharks by putting a fish out there, in whole or in part, for the purpose of the animal consuming it. 

YOUNG: So similarly, if you had a few dogs coming around, and you could attract them closer and closer, And you had a bait that was drawing them clear, and then taking it off them, they would start to get rather pissed off and aggressive. I guess that puts a whole different mindset into what’s taking place as far as the Shark’s concerned. Changing their habits, and what they are used to doing. Like when they used to swim past me, I still think they were just going about their business. But when you’re teasing them, you’re changing the whole habit of how they undertake their day.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Getting back to the operation, during the course of the day the continuation of berleying, and the throw bait being used. The tourists go into the cage, they have their experience, they take their pictures, and then at the end of the day the berleying stops, the cage comes back up, the anchor gets raised, and the people go back to Bluff and the rest of their day. What I want to do is ask you a series of questions that build in complexity. The first specific question: do you think that a White Pointer that has been exposed to cage tour dive operations, that is to say the smell of food and the presence and activity of a throw bait, is likely to associate the smell of food and the throw bait with that specific location - such that, when the tour dive boat is not there in operation, that the White Pointers would stay around that location more than they would otherwise?

YOUNG: Well, there’s a simple answer to that. I would say it’s highly probable that would be the situation, because they obviously frequent that area knowing there is going to be that activity going on there. And possibly, it could be that particular current area, and all that; it could be part of their normal daily routine of swimming for instance from Woman Island, round Edwards Island, over to Bench, and back. But if they’re in that area rather quickly, one would suspect yes - it is changing their normal activity.

CRAWFORD: I think that is important, because you are recognizing that there could very well be normal, underlying natural routines. But on top of that, if I’m understanding what you are saying correctly, you believe there is a high probability that White Pointers will be either visiting or perhaps even residing in that region - more than they would have otherwise. 

YOUNG: I think that you covered it. More than they would otherwise. And that’s a simple answer to that one.

CRAWFORD: Basically, what I was trying to get to was the possible association between the smell of food and the place.          

YOUNG: Yep. And that to me is a reasonably clear understanding of what you see. The probability of them wanting to stay in that area is high. I’ll go back to the days when our probably favorite Titi Islands to dive at were Edwards and Bench Island. 

CRAWFORD: Back in the day?

YOUNG: Back in the day. And we never seen any White Pointers in all those years at all.

CRAWFORD: Right, but also realizing that …

YOUNG: They could have been there! 

CRAWFORD: Yes. As we’ve already discussed, these animals could be out there, and you not see them. Maybe even in close proximity, and you still don’t see them. 

YOUNG: That’s a guarantee, it’s a guarantee. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. the next factor I’m going to add is: in that place where White Pointers are exposed to cage tour dive operations, do you think it is likely that the animals would associate the smell of food and the presence of a throw bait with the occurrence of a boat - even if that boat did not have a motor? Let’s say there was a sailboat comes up, pulls in its sails, there isn’t even a motor necessarily – just the presence of a boat floating on the surface. Do you think that White Pointers would associate the previous smell of food with the presence of a vessel, such that they would investigate that vessel at another place or time, more than the otherwise would? 

YOUNG: Are you saying that if it threw some sort of food over the side, after it arrived or just if it pulled up?

CRAWFORD: No fish smell, just the presence of a boat. Let’s say you and I took a sailboat with no motor, and we took it over there. Is it probable that White Pointers would come and visit us in that boat, regardless of anything else going on?

YOUNG: That is highly improbable.

CRAWFORD: Why do you say that?

YOUNG: Well, because of all the years I’ve spent, moored up in certain areas, all around the Titi Islands, all around Steward Island. And I cannot remember a White Pointer ever coming up to the boat while it’s been moored up.

CRAWFORD: Ok. But if we went over there now, so I am talking about it post-cage tour dive operations. Would those operations have the effect of making it more likely that the Sharks would investigate any vessel, fish smell or not, on the surface?

YOUNG: I guess they would, because I consider them to be highly intelligent. And if they are already in that area, and the operations have been carrying on, and they hear a vibration.

CRAWFORD: You are going into my next factor though. Right now, I am just talking about the presence of a boat, without them hearing anything.

YOUNG: Without hearing anything?

CRAWFORD: Does the simple occurrence of a boat floating up there, would that be enough to trigger their approach?

YOUNG: Well I don’t think so. That’s my personal opinion.

CRAWFORD: That’s fine. All of this is your personal opinion. Now, we're going to add the motor. Do you think that as a result of exposure to cage tour dive operations that White Pointers would associate the sound of a motor, I’m not going to go into that particular motor just yet, but the sound of any motor? Would a White Pointer associate the cage dive operations with the sound of a motor, such that at another place and another time, if it heard a motor sound that it would go and investigate?  

YOUNG: It would depend if that engine was in the very close proximity of where they had previously been bringing the Sharks in.

CRAWFORD: If I am understanding you, the answer would be yes if the motors are similar enough in sound, but probably not if it was a dissimilar motor sound?

YOUNG: And if it was in a different area. 

CRAWFORD: And I already said, such that if the animal was in a different place and at a different time - would it go investigate that vessel?

YOUNG: I think it would be marginal, personally. If there’d been operations of Shark cage diving, and the berley going out at a different area to where a vessel pulled up a kilometer away. I don’t think that it would have that big of a bearing attracting a White Pointer. If it had a similar engine, similar engine noise, I would say most definitely.

CRAWFORD: Do you think that White Pointers exposed to cage tour dive operations would associate the smell of food with that particular motor on that particular boat, such that if they encounter that particular boat with that motor at another place at another time, that they would be more inclined to investigate it? 

YOUNG: 100% and it’s been proven. I mean without a doubt.

CRAWFORD: How has it been proven?

YOUNG: I mentioned before, if there was two boats steaming along and one was a Codboat and one was a Crayboat, and the engine on the Crayboat was of V8 Cummings and the Codboat was a [Gardiner??]. Every time it would follow the Codboat. Every time.

CRAWFORD: Just to be explicit, there is a presumption in there that the Sharks have previously associated the Codboat with the smell of fish, whereas the Crayboat has not had that fish smell. And you're saying that has been known to local people?

YOUNG: Forever.

CRAWFORD: This is a very important issue that I want to discuss with you, this idea of following. Do you believe that White Pointers follow boats in general, not just cage tour dive operation boats?

YOUNG: No, I don’t, I don’t believe they follow boats in general. They’re intelligent enough to know that if this boat is going to provide food, or even just a berley - something in the water and they can relate to that. I think they would definitely follow that. But just a boat that hasn’t got anything? Nah.

CRAWFORD: Fair enough. That is completely cool that you put it in that condition. But now let’s suppose there’s no berley; let’s suppose there’s no chemical cue or anything like that; it is simply the association of it being the specific motor sound of the tour dive boat. Is there a high probability that the animal would associate cage tour operations with the sound of that specific motor, such that if it heard that particular motor it would be attracted to and follow it?

YOUNG: I would feel quite confident that it would, because they are highly intelligent, and they know. There’d be no doubt of my mind what could happen. I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened that the cage diving operations ceases say at 4 pm, and for some reason they quietly idle into Halfmoon Bay, and it would not surprise me at all if there wasn’t a White Pointer following it all the way. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened, if they go in there regularly.                              

CRAWFORD: I’m presuming you have not heard of such following behavior?

YOUNG: No, I haven’t heard it has happened. But it would not surprise me at all.

CRAWFORD: Alright. In any of the circumstances you were involved with, have White Pointers ever followed your boat? 

YOUNG: Referring to when we’ve been commercially Pāua diving?

CRAWFORD: Yes 

YOUNG: No, never then.

CRAWFORD: In the instances when you were doing the recreational fishing?

YOUNG: Absolutely.  We were berleying. 

YOUNG: And that berley attracted.

CRAWFORD: It attracted. I think you said that you moved after attracting the White Pointer?

YOUNG: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Did the animal follow you?

YOUNG: No, not at that point. But when we moved, we went to the other end of Bench Island quickly.

CRAWFORD: Roughly what speed?

YOUNG: 20 knots. 22 knots. And within minutes we had caught a Mako Shark, so perhaps ...

CRAWFORD: it’s hard to say, right? Because you can’t see.

YOUNG: No, you can’t see. And as I said, that Shark never broke the surface, so we had no idea where it went. 

CRAWFORD: Of all the people that you know, old-timers and contemporaries, has anybody actually seen following behavior by White Pointers?

YOUNG: Yes, yes.

CRAWFORD: Was it associated with boats that had previously been, either berleying and/or putting fish remains in the water?

YOUNG: Yes. And it relates to Codfishing mainly.  

CRAWFORD: And that kind of following behavior has been known for a long time?

YOUNG: A long time. 

CRAWFORD: Following in the sense of actually following a slow-moving vessel?

YOUNG: The food is going over the back as they are going.

CRAWFORD: Or had just previously been going over, and the animal decides to follow for some distance, perhaps to see if there’s any more coming. What do you reckon the cut off for speed might be? I mean slow-moving is a relative phrase, and you have already talked about these animals being able to swim at speed.

YOUNG: But it’s not their normal pattern.

CRAWFORD: Right. And it’s not something you would expect they would do for a prolonged period of time?

YOUNG: No.

CRAWFORD: Some people have talked about the speed of the cage tour dive boats, or at least the previous ones. I ask you because I think that you are one of my more generally-knowledgeable knowledge holders, in a bunch of different ways. If you had to pick a threshold vessel speed that you think a White Pointer would not follow for a prolong period of time, what do you think that threshold might be? 

YOUNG: Well, it's probably about 10 or 12 knots, in my guess.

CRAWFORD: You figure that they can maintain that?

YOUNG: Not for a long-distance no. If you were talking from Edwards Island to Halfmoon Bay, yes. I think they could quite easily follow that boat. Not necessarily covering the distance at the same speed as the vessel. But they could keep a total wavelength of that vessel traveling in that direction, and the vibration in the water is just immense. I mean it would be nothing for a White Pointer to follow it two or three kilometers away. Easily.  

CRAWFORD: What is the distance between Edwards and Halfmoon Bay? Roughly?

YOUNG: Three of four kilometers. Maybe a little more.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Last thing in this chain of questions, and then we'll open it up. Do you think White Pointers that have been exposed to cage tour dive operations, especially the smell of food and the presence of Human beings in the water, that those individuals would associate the smell of food with the occurrence  of Humans in the water such that if they were to encounter a Human being in the water at another place at another time, that they would be more likely to investigate, or more likely to investigate at a higher incident level?

YOUNG: I think both. I think they would be more likely to investigate at the higher level, because you've already changed their habit. They have never been, in thousands of years, subject to this change of habit. The fact is they're being teased like the dog situation as I was saying, and being aroused to bring them to a whole different level than they normally operate at. I'm thinking it would have major impact, yes.

CRAWFORD: Ok. One thing I wanted to make sure that came up, and you brought it up already, was this idea that a throw bait being there to guide the fish around the cage. But the bait can also be a source of frustration?

YOUNG: Well it’s got to be. I mean it’s quite clear, isn’t it? It was like you arrived at my house, and you're absolutely desperate for an ice-cold beer because it’s a hot day. And I slip one over, and you go to reach for it, and I pull it away. You think "The bastard!" And if I do it three or four times, by the time I've done that, you're likely to actually attack me.

CRAWFORD: Do you believe that White Pointers can be frustrated to the point where it can have a significant effect on the intensity of their behavior? Some people argue that they are fish, and fish just don't have that capacity.

YOUNG: Yeah, right. You say they're fish, but they are very smart fish. And what I would say to a person that doesn’t believe that is that if they are so confident that White Pointers after they've been teased etcetera, etcetera. And someone jumps in the water. Whether they've got a fish, or the smell of fish, whatever. I would say that White Pointers would be there to have a look at them pronto, if it’s in the area where they have been teasing them. And that’s my personal view. And if they are confident enough that the fish is not going to have any interest, they’re bloody stupid. And I think 100% if the fish has been agitated enough, it’s probably going to come in on the more end of the aggressive scale to see whether "I should take a bite of this." Yeah, that’s my personal view.

CRAWFORD: You indicated that these White Pointers are intelligent, and I know it’s a difficult thing to kind of figure. When you think about the intelligence of White Pointers, and specially them being perhaps more intelligent than most people think, can you give some sense as to why you think they are intelligent? More intelligent than most people think? 

YOUNG: Well over the years, you know you look at their behavior. I think that unless they are riled up, they just cruise along, do their business, and they're not really interested too much in your average person swimming out there in the water, unless they've had a bad day or something like that. When it comes to intelligence level, I refer back to the boats more than anything. They can select an engine tune or vibration, whatever it is that vessel's emitting, and they'll just cruise along knowing their tea's going to be ready. It’s not a high form of intelligence, I don’t suppose. But they sure as hell have got it. Their potential to sort something out underwater that isn’t actually an engine, is quite good. Look at the amount of times I've been investigated. So, they've got their radar system that they can sense you in the water, and obviously there is some sort of intelligence with that. On a higher form, I don’t think they are super-intelligent. But I know they're bright enough to work out all the things that I've discussed. And if tea is going to ready at such a time, they'll be there. Simple as that. Because they've worked out all the other equations to it, formulating into a meal.

CRAWFORD: Ok. We talked about your affiliation with the Pāua Industry Council, and the legal challenge to DOC in terms of the permit. Is there a particular concern that you have about things that could happen - things are just not addressed by the current management regime?

YOUNG: The concern is that DOC haven’t taken the well-being of the general public into account whatsoever. I would put it to them, if I don’t think a White Pointer could follow one of those boats into the bay, or even if one was on the maneuver somewhere else and there was someone having a play in the water, and it pulled up there unbeknowing to the people in the water, I'm sure that a White Pointer would follow that noise. Then I would say to them, "If they think that is it so safe to get into the water with a Shark, why do they need a Shark cage?" You asked them, "It’s quite safe." After you wind a White Pointer up, I don’t think it is safe. I think it’s quite unsafe. So, I bring it back to all my years underwater, and I still got all my limbs. [chuckles] I didn’t tease the White Pointers.

CRAWFORD: I want to specifically go to the idea of feeding. Because in the permit conditions, feeding is not allowed, but if a White Pointer actually takes a throw bait, then that's it for throw baits that day of operation. But it does happen. And on top of that, there is nothing in the current legislation as far as I understand, that prevents anybody else from renting a boat with a box of Cod frames, taking it over to Edwards Island, and feeding the White Pointers for shits and giggles.

YOUNG: There wouldn’t be. 

CRAWFORD: There might be something in the Wildlife Protection Act, I don’t know. But the point is that feeding is a thing that the tour dive operators are specially prohibited from doing. But other people still could. Some people have been very concerned that there is indeed feeding happening, and not necessarily just by the tour dive operators themselves, but by others. That dramatically changes the sequence of questions I was taking you through, because they were all about the Shark's association with just smell and visual cues. I believe this is DOC’s reason in the permit for saying “Thou shall not feed the Sharks,” because when food is introduced, the association can become very, very different.

YOUNG: Of course. So, you are changing the habit of the animal. It’s not its normal behavior. Anything that brings it out of its normal behavior pattern is a risk isn’t it? So, when you look at other people feeding the White Pointer, other than the tour cage Shark operators - yeah, it’s still going to have the same effect but is it going to be in the same area? Is it going to be somewhere else?

CRAWFORD: Let’s imagine that there’s a day-tripper, who takes a box of Cod over, and starts feeding the White Pointers. There is no cage tour dive operation, but the Sharks have all those other cues, in the terms of a boat floating there, the boat’s motor - but now we have actual food in the water, not just berley. Even if it’s the case that DOC prevents tour dive operators from feeding the Sharks under their permit, feeding done by non-cage tour dive operators can lead to the same kind of dangerous associations by the White Pointers.

YOUNG: Absolutely, I agree with that. But would the general public follow that pattern if it had not been allowed? So, it’s happened; I know it’s happened. But if it was discontinued …

CRAWFORD: All somebody needs to do is go recreational fishing over at Edwards Island, completely within the law, but there is the struggling fish, potentially the cleaning of that fish, and there are the same food cues. Maybe the White Pointer takes that fish off an angler’s line. And it has food now. It’s a bigger complicated world, isn’t it?

YOUNG: So, now that the pattern of the animals has been changed, does the memory last for that long? Well, I have got my thoughts that probably it would be quite some time before they got out of that habit, you know? Like a season, or maybe a couple of seasons? 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Now, help me understand how we could be dealing with one of the highest aggregations of White Pointers in New Zealand coastal waters, right up there with the Chathams and the Otago Peninsula - which we already had a good discussion about. How could there be such a high density of aggregated White Pointers and - knock on wood - there haven't yet been any Level 4s - aggressive interactions?

YOUNG: Well, it’s a question I have been asking myself for some time, Steve, to be honest. I've questioned myself about it, how this hasn’t happened. Is it something that is guaranteed sooner or later that it will happen? If these animals keep having their habits changed, and that is what I always come back to - changing their habits. Will it make them different in their interaction with anyone that's in the water. As we know, from your conversation with me, they swim past normally. Is this going to affect the outcome and the long-term, when they follow the vessel into Half Moon Bay, and there’s children swimming in the beach. What value do we put on children’s lives, or anyone’s lives as such. If, in fact that is what will happen. I don't know, and I've said that - because I can’t work it out myself.

CRAWFORD: And the same is true ... as you said before, under normal circumstances, even if there were no cage tour dive operations, there would still be White Pointer attacks in New Zealand coastal waters from time to time.

YOUNG: Yes, there would be. There has been.

CRAWFORD: So, there’s that underlying base of risk, but then there’s that thorny, complex issue of added levels of risk factors. Of which cage tour dive operations are one factor, but there are others as well.

YOUNG: Without a doubt, there's other factors. But perhaps not as directed.

CRAWFORD: Ok. We already talked about the movement of these White Pointers, both on a local New Zealand scale and the broader Pacific scale. We also realize that there are other Shark cage tour dive operations elsewhere that could be affecting the behaviour of the individual animals that come here. And also, the possibility that the animals being exposed to cage tour dive operations here are moving elsewhere, to Australia or wherever. Remember when you asked about how long any effects would persist in the animal’s behaviour? If there is a behavioural association between cues, does it breakdown over time? And if so, at what point does it fade out?    

YOUNG:  Well that’s one question that’s going to be a sticky answer to give, isn’t it?

CRAWFORD: Well, we can start to answer these questions if we try. I think what my job in this whole project is to try and get people thinking clearly about what the states of nature are. What are the specific questions that we have? And which are the most important questions we should be trying to answer?

YOUNG: Right.

Copyright © 2019 Paul Young and Steve Crawford