Riki Topi

1. EXPERIENCE IN AOTEAROA/NZ COASTAL ENVIRONMENTS

CRAWFORD: Riki, I think you said it in your mihi, but when were born? 

R. TOPI: 1962. 

CRAWFORD: In the Bluff? 

R. TOPI: In the Bluff, yep. 

CRAWFORD: What is your first recollection of being around the water? 

R. TOPI: Oh, God. 

CRAWFORD: When did you start spending a lot of time around the water?

R. TOPI: Oh, when we were kids. We were brought up on the water. 

CRAWFORD: Yes. It’s right here. I know it’s kind of a dumb question, since it’s right here. But I'm going after the first thing that you laid down as a memory about the sea - that you can recall.

R. TOPI: The Old Man was a fisherman. I used to go every holiday with him. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Earliest recollection - adult supervision. That seems to be kind of a natural thing. You remember being around the water, on the beach, with adults around?

R. TOPI: Yeah, there was always lots of kids. And sometimes some adults. Sometimes there wasn’t, you know?

CRAWFORD: Ok. Spending time around the Bluff Harbour for the most part? Or the ocean side? 

R. TOPI: When we were in Bluff, we weren’t allowed to go around the back of the hill with dinghies and anything like that. Had to stay in the Harbour. But we spent most of our child life up the inlet. 

CRAWFORD: Paterson Inlet - on Stewart Island? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. And here at Ruapuke. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s rewind a little bit then. Your family on Ruapuke Island - did you have a place there, or did you visit other family members, or what? 

R. TOPI: No, we’re from there. We’re actually landholders for there. It’s been handed down. Colin would have told you of this. 

CRAWFORD: He spoke about it.

R. TOPI: Yeah, Mum and Dad both come from Stewart Island. Dad's side, strong Māori side. Even though we don’t look Māori. And we’re lucky we’ve got Ruapuke. Ruapuke's probably the only island been exempt from the Treaty of Waitangi, so we’ve sort of got everything within ourselves, if you know what I mean. 

CRAWFORD: I think so. 

R. TOPI: Hasn’t been sold. Or they reckon it was sold, and then rebought. So, it did come under the Treaty. But we always said that we didn’t sell. We grew up, most of our time, there. Most of the time there, and in the Inlet, before we went in. 

CRAWFORD: As a kid - let’s consider your school years - how many weeks out of the year did you spend on the Island? 

R. TOPI: Well, every school holiday. 

CRAWFORD: Which is going to be what - maybe eight weeks of the year?

R. TOPI: Yeah, probably something like that. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. If you were spending eight weeks of the year at Ruapuke, were you also spending other weeks, in addition to those eight weeks, on Stewart Island?

R. TOPI: Mum and Dad left Stewart Island just before I was born. That’s why I was born in the Bluff. Then they lived in the Bluff, but you see - Ruapuke was always there. It’s always been us. If you know what I mean. Our family. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

R. TOPI: Not only our family. There’s a lot of people who’ve got rights over there. But the Topis and the Waitiris are sort of the two main families that go there. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. So, you were over there on a regular basis. Here in Bluff as local kids, you were also spending lots of time in Bluff Harbour? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Swimming, dinghies, doing some harvesting?

R. TOPI: Oh yeah, we were always gathering something. 

CRAWFORD: And the parents said not to go outside the Harbour?

R. TOPI: Right. 

CRAWFORD: Ok, that’s important. When you were on Ruapuke, did you have access to dinghies over there? 

R. TOPI: Yeah, dinghies. We didn’t really need to go out in them, but we would as well. There’s really no need to - there’s enough on the rocks. 

CRAWFORD: So, you spent less time on the water at Ruapuke? 

R. TOPI: No, I wouldn’t say less. Lot of time around the water when we were young. We were like bloody water babies, us kids when we were young. Always in the water doing something. 

CRAWFORD: In general, what were your activities around Ruapuke then? What were you up to?

R. TOPI: Well, horseriding, mustering sheep and cattle. [Fire bugging??]. Just kid stuff.

CRAWFORD: When you were on the water, what were your activities there? 

R. TOPI: Fishing. Surfing. 

CRAWFORD: Surfing?

R. TOPI: Yeah. When it was shitty, we used to out in the dinghies and surf them onto the beach. As you do when you were kids.

CRAWFORD: What kind of fishing?

R. TOPI: Oh, a bit of Cod. 

CRAWFORD: Line fishing?

R. TOPI: Yeah, just line fishing. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever do any setnetting or anything?

R. TOPI: A little bit in the commercial, yes. In the younger years, we might have a set a net, but not very often - because you’d get too many bloody fish. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. What about freediving of any kind? 

R. TOPI: Yeah, I‘d do the odd bit of freediving - not tank dives, just free dives. It cost a lot for a tank.

CRAWFORD: As a kid, if you were spending about eight weeks a year on Ruapuke, how many weeks would you be spending on Stewart Island? 

R. TOPI: Not a lot. 

CRAWFORD: Two or three weeks a year? 

R. TOPI: Yeah, if that. We used to go across for Christmas. Go over in little boats ... there used to be 20 boats, all along the wharf there. 

CRAWFORD: What part of the Inlet? 

R. TOPI: Paterson Inlet. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah, but what part? 

R. TOPI: It depended which way the wind blew. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Same type of thing? Dinghies and little bit of fishing as well?

R. TOPI: Yep. We’re hunter gatherers. We hunt and gather. You do stuff for your guts. 

CRAWFORD: What kind of fisherman was your Dad? 

R. TOPI: Bloody good one. 

CRAWFORD: [laughs] I didn’t mean how good, I meant what kind of fisherman was he? A Cray man? A Cod man?

R. TOPI: Yep, he fished for Cray and Blue Cod. Mainly Cray. 

CRAWFORD: Was he potting or mainly linefishing? 

R. TOPI: Potting mostly. Linefishing earlier on. He held the record at Stewart Island for handborne Blue Cod. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of quantity?


R. TOPI: Tonne and a half, for a day - and in an 18-foot dinghy. 

CRAWFORD: [laughs] Wow. Ok.

R. TOPI: I think it was 18-foot. Was one of the ones that he used to sail out of Stewart Island, I presume. 

CRAWFORD: How old were you, the first time you went out fishing with him. 

R. TOPI: Oh Christ, I was still in school. 

CRAWFORD: So ten years old, twelve? something like that?

R. TOPI: Yeah, probably younger. 

CRAWFORD: When he fished he fished out of Bluff? 

R. TOPI: Yep. Used to fish around Ruapuke, used to fish around Stewart island. Used to fish up here along the shore, right up to Presi. 

CRAWFORD: So he’d be gone for three or four days in a row?

R. TOPI: More like a week. They used to be 10-day trips too. 

CRAWFORD: When you went out with him, you were gone for that length of time too? 

R. TOPI: We were never usually allowed to go on the long trips - just the short ones. 

CRAWFORD: Yep. Day-tripping, maybe some overnighters? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: What size boat was he fishing?

R. TOPI: Well, he had all sorts of boats. The last was about 48-foot steel boat - [6LXB Gunner??] in it. 

CRAWFORD: Before that, it would have been smaller vessels?

R. TOPI: No, not necessarily. There was smaller, yes. But there was bigger too. 

CRAWFORD: Always Cray and Cod?

R. TOPI: Mainly, yes. 

CRAWFORD: Did you do any setnetting with him? 

R. TOPI: Not a lot of, no. Crayfish was the main one, really. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of season when you would go out fishing with him - when for Cray, when for Cod?

R. TOPI: They used to have the off-season, the fall and winter run. Follow it up to Milford. Muttonbirding time, around May, he wouldn’t fish because he’d be on the Muttonbird island. 

CRAWFORD: Speaking of Muttonbirding - is there that same kind of roughly two-month window where you’re Muttonbirding?

R. TOPI: I don’t go down. My Wife goes down - and my Son, they go down with her Father. 

CRAWFORD: But you did at the time? 

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all did. 

CRAWFORD: And Muttonbirding on the Northern Titi Islands? 

R. TOPI: No. Muttonbirding down here, down the back. 

CRAWFORD: The Southern Titi Islands. 

R. TOPI: Yeah. Then we ended up getting burned out there, and we’d come up back here. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly two months out of the year, every year?

R. TOPI: Pretty much. 

CRAWFORD: When did you start having access to your own boat? 

R. TOPI: Few years ago, now. 

CRAWFORD: Maybe twenties?

R. TOPI: Be later than that. I was probably early thirties when I bought my first boat. 

CRAWFORD: So, from the time that you were a kid, you were fishing on your Dad’s boat?

R. TOPI: Not all the time - only part time. And then when I got out of school, I got a full-time job on another boat. 

CRAWFORD: That’s what I’m looking for. You got out of school age 16-17?

R. TOPI: I was about 15 when I got out of school. Didn’t like it. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. Fifteen years old, you leave school and start fishing full-time.

R. TOPI: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Fishing full-time with a Bluff fishermen?

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: What size boat was that?

R. TOPI: Was about 48-, 50-foot. Steel boat. 

CRAWFORD: Another Cray-Cod operation?

R. TOPI: Yeah, Cray-Cod. 

CRAWFORD: Same type of region you had been fishing with your Dad?

R. TOPI: No. We were up at Codfish. 

CRAWFORD: Codfish Island?

R. TOPI: Yeah. Fished around there, nine years of that. 

CRAWFORD: That was kind of a consistent place? Northwest corner of the island? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. There's good fish there. Was at the time. But as the years have gone on, things have got hammered you know?

CRAWFORD: Ok. And whereabouts for Crayfishing? 

R. TOPI: We used to Crayfish around here. And then Cod too. We used to Cod all around the Capes, right round Stewart Island. Ruapuke, southeast end.

CRAWFORD: How long did you fish that job?

R. TOPI: Nine years I was with that job, on that particular boat. 

CRAWFORD: You would have been about 24, 25?

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: And then what changed?

R. TOPI: Then I got job Oystering. I did that for a few years. And then I ended up buying my fist boat. 

CRAWFORD: And where were you Oystering?

R. TOPI: Foveaux Strait. You only Oyster in the Strait. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. That was for how many years?

R. TOPI: Oh shit ... that was for a few years too.

CRAWFORD: Maybe five?

R. TOPI: Probably would be five, yeah. And then we bought our boat. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. That’s a natural breakpoint. Who was 'we'?

R. TOPI: Yeah, there was three of us, and we bought into this boat from a Pāua farm. We got mucked around by government. We took about 18 years to get a bloody licence, that should have only taken 18 days. 

CRAWFORD: What year was that, when you finally bought it?

R. TOPI: When we bought the boat must have been the '80s I suppose - '85 or so. 

CRAWFORD: That’s right when the quotas came in? 1984 - something like that?

R. TOPI: Yeah, I think it might have been 83. We bought it just before the quota year, I know that. 

CRAWFORD: Did you receive quota through that first installment?

R. TOPI: No, I didn’t. No. Nine years of [bobwork and pots??] - I sold my fish to Bob, instead of the factory so I never had a catch history. Bob did because he went through the factory. 

CRAWFORD: So, you went through the process of leasing quota or whatever?

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. We just leased quota and carried on. We actually got with Sanford’s, and just went with them. 

CRAWFORD: What size was the boat that you bought?

R. TOPI: Ours was a [Wellchase??] - she’s about 38-foot. One of the old originals that the Everly Brothers built. 

CRAWFORD: Once again, set up for a Cray-Cod operation?

R. TOPI: Yeah. Well, she’d been out of the water for years, and we had to fix her up before fishing. And of course all the rest of the stuff - getting her registered and that.

CRAWFORD: Were you skippering? You had your ticket?

R. TOPI: Yeah, I got my ticket. I skippered her. We had turns.

CRAWFORD: When you were fishing again, was this still out of Bluff?

R. TOPI: We actually went out of Bluff, but we went to Ruapuke and we fished out of Ruapuke. 

CRAWFORD: That’s important, because you spent more time around Ruapuke than anywhere else? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. Up until this year, I would spend nine months of the year at Ruapuke. I’ve got a little boat now, I got the [Solitaire??] - she’s 36-foot; she’s an ex-police launch from England. It was fibreglass. I fished in here for the last 15 years I suppose - 10-15 years. Then I just got sick of fishing by myself. So, I got this other job with my skipper on the Oyster boat. So, I just stay with him. I just got my boat tied up, and I use it when I want to go to Ruapuke. 

CRAWFORD: Currently, what boat do you fish? 

R. TOPI: I’m crewing on the [Lucy Star??.

CRAWFORD: Is that another Cray-Cod boat? 

R. TOPI: No, that’s a trawler. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. I haven’t talked to too many trawlers. 

R. TOPI: It’s a trawl net that they tow on behind you. 

CRAWFORD: Midwater trawl? Bottom-trawl?

R. TOPI: Drop it down - it’s a bottom trawl. 

CRAWFORD: For bottom fish? Flatfish?

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Where do you trawl?

R. TOPI: We’re up at Te Waewae most of the time. Or at the back of Ruapuke here, or at the back of Codfish here.

CRAWFORD: And Oystering?

R. TOPI: You start Oystering on the first of March. That runs for six months. You get all your trawl gear off, and all your Oystering gear on. 

CRAWFORD: Right. Same vessel?

R. TOPI: Same vessel, different gear. 

CRAWFORD: Oystering in Foveaux Strait. 

R. TOPI: Every year. 

CRAWFORD: Does that pretty much bring us up to the present?

R. TOPI: Yep. Brings us up to now. 

CRAWFORD: That’s a little bit faster than usual. You’re more efficient than I thought. 

R. TOPI: Ha!

2. EXPOSURE TO MĀORI/LOCAL/SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS 

CRAWFORD: Where would you rank Māori and Science culture and knowledge, in terms of what you know about what happens in the marine ecosystem? Let's start with the influence of Māori culture on your knowledge.

R. TOPI: Doesn’t. Do I look like Māori? 

CRAWFORD: I have learned enough not to judge any books by any covers.

R. TOPI: [laughs] Oh, well ...

CRAWFORD: So, I don’t make any judgements. I just ask people.

R. TOPI: I don’t think Māori has played that big a role for me, anyway. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of the traditional stories and the traditional knowledge ...

R. TOPI: I’m not into stories. Myself, I’m into doing it. I’d rather make the story, than read the story. 

CRAWFORD: But what I’m asking you is ... in terms of Māori traditional knowledge, the lore, the old ways, the old stories, the legends, the whakapapa ... 

R. TOPI: The whakapapa hasn't gone. Everything else has gone. It’s not like it was, today. Because I went to a European school, I dressed in European clothes, and I drove around in a European car. I can’t talk Māori. 

CRAWFORD: Was there a culture taboo about that, when you were growing up?

R. TOPI: When Dad went to school, it was. It was sort of taboo. It was never really at school when we were there, Māori wasn't. It was only in the last sort of ten or twenty years maybe, that it’s re-emerged. Which is a good thing. I should be fluent in Māori. For who I am, you know?

CRAWFORD: Because Māori knowledge is embedded in the language - if the language goes, the culture can’t survive? 

R. TOPI: That’s right. My great-great-grandfather was a Chief. So, there you go - I should be. For me, I come down to this Marae ... I didn’t have anything to do with the politics. But I know to work that thing, and I know how to work that bit there, I know how to work that there. And I know how to cook things. And we do a good job of it here. And the rest of it ... I don’t have anything to do with that. I don’t live to work. I work to live - that’s my motto. I’ve lost too many people in my family. I take every day as a great day, even if it’s a shit day.

CRAWFORD: Ok. In terms of Science influencing what you know about how the world works?

R. TOPI: Well, probably more because ... Well, I won’t say probably more - because Māoris, they did teach me about the moons and the tides.

CRAWFORD: But in terms of Science influencing what you know ... I mean, to a certain extent you want the Government people to explain what their Science research is all about? And as a fisherman, 

I'm sure you see the relationships between Science and decision-making about harvest limits and all that stuff. 

R. TOPI: I'm a hunter-gatherer more than a fisherman. 

CRAWFORD: Fair enough. 

R. TOPI: We don’t buy fish. We don’t buy very many vegetables. We hunt and we grow.

CRAWFORD: Alright. So, overall - where would you score that Science influence?

R. TOPI: Medium. Yeah. It wouldn’t be any higher.

3. WHITE POINTER DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE

CRAWFORD: Prior to seeing your first White Pointer, do you remember the old-timers talking about them?

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: And what had they said? 

R. TOPI: Well, it was always Caroline Jack - he was a monster. 

CRAWFORD: Would you have heard about him from the time you were about five or so?

R. TOPI: It was just one of the stories. 

CRAWFORD: What did they say about Caroline Jack?

R. TOPI: Just that it was big, and that you didn't swim there. Caroline Jack would be around, and you didn’t set a net or anything near it. It would swim away with the net, or swim away with a long line, or whatever.

CRAWFORD: Did you ever see Caroline Jack? 

R. TOPI: No, didn't. Heard about him. 

CRAWFORD: Was it the case that he came back to that bay, year after year?

R. TOPI: Pretty much, yeah. Was a guy seen the last one, I don't know if it was Caroline Jack. He visited a while back - him and his Missus and his kids. Must Have been about two years ago, I suppose. And he was pulling fish up, and they were getting chomped off, you know? 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

R. TOPI: "Bloody losing all my fish. There must be a Greyboy down there.” And he looked over the other side, and said "Shark there, bigger than the boat." 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. and how big was their boat? 

R. TOPI: I don’t know how big the boat was. It’d be 20-odd foot, anyway. 

CRAWFORD: Big fish. 

R. TOPI: Big fish. So they lifted the anchor up, and come home with no fish. And he's never, ever been back. 

CRAWFORD: Did this fellow actually see the White Pointer taking his fish?

R. TOPI: No. 

CRAWFORD: But he was losing fish ...

R. TOPI: Yeah, and the White Pointer was there, you know?

CRAWFORD: Any indication that that Shark was interacting with their boat, or them in any way?

R. TOPI: I don’t know, you’d have to ask him that. He just says that he freaked out. Freaked out, come straight home. 

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]. That story you told about Caroline Jack, that you heard from this other guy. 

That would have been an animal that was taking fish off of them. That would put it above the simple drive-by level, so I'm guessing that would be a Level 3 of interest, but no aggression? 

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: What else did you hear about Caroline Jack? Did it have any distinguishing features that people ...

R. TOPI: No, just that it was big. Big like that one there, that’s mouthing the ass end of my boat. 

CRAWFORD: It’s mouthing what? The stern on your boat? Ok. I’ve got to stay in order here. I want to talk about that mouthing behaviour. But, hang onto that please.  Let's go back to when you were a kid on the island. That Shark, that individual Shark that people were talking about as Caroline Jack. All of that predated you? 

R. TOPI: It was before me. It was a story that was handed down. I don’t how many years it’d been handed down. But my uncle Alph told me, and my Dad told me. Their fathers obviously told them. So, there’s three generations for a start, isn't it?

CRAWFORD: Yeah. And it may or may not be the same Shark. 

R. TOPI: No. But it’s going to be a fucking old Shark

CRAWFORD: [chuckles] Right. One question that comes up is this idea about residency. The idea that it sometimes could possibly have been an individual Shark that came back to Caroline Bay over and over again. The idea that at some time it gets displaced, or it dies or whatever. But if there’s something about that bay, and something about the presence of an individual Shark in that bay. Caroline Jack could be a sequence of individuals. But the stories you heard - it was just a Shark in the Caroline Bay. Any other stories you can remember about Caroline Jack interacting with Humans?

R. TOPI: No. Different people have seen it - different people have had nets taken away. No, you don't set your net there - it would just take it away, so it was a waste.

CRAWFORD: What do you reckon was the reason a Shark might hang around that particular bay - Caroline Bay. Were there Seals around there?

R. TOPI: Yeah, there are Seals around Ruapuke. 

CRAWFORD: All the way around? 

R. TOPI: Pretty much. 

CRAWFORD: Some people tell me about Seal populations - back in the day, around 20-30 years ago - that they were pretty low. And then as protection kicks in, the numbers start to increase. Over the past couple years or so, they’re really taking off. Is that the same pattern at Ruapuke? 

R. TOPI: Pretty much. I’ve actually got a bit of a hate on with the Seals. I tried to get a Seal cull there a few years back, when I was on the Muttonbird committee. But ran into a couple of Māori locals that stuffed it all up for us. Didn’t sort of know the full story. I actually was taken away with DOC [Department of Conservation] for five days - to do a bit of research on where I thought the areas were being effected the most. But they’re making a mess of the place, the Seals. They’re just wrecking the place. 

CRAWFORD: Numbers going up again?

R. TOPI: Oh yeah, numbers are up. Muttonbird islands are going up real quick. 

CRAWFORD: Pupping all over the place? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Are there particular hotspots for the Seals on Ruapuke.

R. TOPI: Yeah, there is. 

CRAWFORD: Where's that? 

R. TOPI: Where the Humans are. 

CRAWFORD: Show me, please. 

R. TOPI: Down the south end here. Down South Point. Shitloads there, big group here, shitloads down here. And Seal Rocks - which is just over here - there's plenty there. And Green Island, which is just here. Not too many down this [west] side, because the weather comes in this side. Mostly down the back.

CRAWFORD: Do you reckon there’s an association between the presence of the Seals and the presence of the White Pointers?

R. TOPI: Well, it’s obvious isn’t it?

CRAWFORD: Not always. Not everywhere. 

R. TOPI: Why do you go to McDonald’s? 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Where around in Ruapuke have you seen the greatest number of White Pointers?

R. TOPI: South Point. 

CRAWFORD: Do you see multiple White Pointers at South Point at a time? 

R. TOPI: Yes.

CRAWFORD: So, they’re aggregating - and you reckon it's because of the Seals? 

R. TOPI: Definitely. 

CRAWFORD: Is there a seasonal pulse to when the White Pointers come in? 

R. TOPI: Yeah, when the bulls and all that come up, and the calves and all the young pups are born. That’s around summertime, that is. The waters warm up, the Sharks come back. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of the early days, especially when you were fishing with your Old Man in the region that you were fishing - would you have seen White Pointers as a matter of course back in the day?

R. TOPI: Not really. When I was with the Old Man, we didn’t have salmon guts running off the boat, like we have today. The bait juice, and all that sort of thing. What went into a Crayfish pot was pretty much frozen, or fresh off the trawlers.

CRAWFORD: Do you figure that the bait type is an important factor in whether or not a fisherman sees a White Pointer?

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: What is it about the bait that would be important?

R. TOPI: What’s in here [points to Stewart Island chart]?

CRAWFORD: A Salmon farm, and a Mussel farm. 

R. TOPI: And what was the most pings that DOC had when they put out the Shark monitor? This monitor here was the most monitored in the south. When the Salmon boat come across, it used to pick up the morts - which was all the dead fish. It had a big tank on the back of the boat, they used to put them in. And then they used to take it out here on the Straits, and just dump it behind here. Not allowed to do that now, because the Sharks. The Sharks swam back up the scent line, and they swam back up to the Salmon farms. 

CRAWFORD: How do we know that that happened?

R. TOPI: Ask the scientists. And you can ask the fishermen. 

CRAWFORD: But where did you hear this? 

R. TOPI: From the scientists and so ...

CRAWFORD: From the DOC scientists?

R. TOPI: From the DOC scientists, and the NIWA scientists. So therefore, now all their morts have got be put in rubbish tins, so there's nothing leaks out of it. To try and stop the Sharks from backtracking scent. 

CRAWFORD: Some of the people talked about the Salmon farm in the early days, when it was dumping its morts off Ulva Island.

R. TOPI: Yeah!

CRAWFORD: And later they were dumping them on the outside ...

R. TOPI: Just down here, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: And then more recently, the vast majority are being reprocessed back at Bluff. 

R. TOPI: Back at Bluff, yeah. There’s a place now that turns it into fish fertilizer. 

CRAWFORD: Right. If I’m hearing you right, based on your knowledge from the DOC and NIWA scientists was that there was a change in the regulation of the Salmon farm with regards to the disposal of their waste? And related directly to the White Pointers?

R. TOPI: Well ... White Pointers are scavengers, aren’t they?

CRAWFORD: They are both - scavengers and predators. 

R. TOPI: So, if there’s a nice big juicy Salmon laying on the bottom of this, they’re not going to swim past it are they? They’re going to pick it up. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

R. TOPI: All Salmon farms around the world have Shark problems, don’t they? My Missus, she mends all the nets that come back from Stewart Island. She’s a net-mender for the Salmon farm. And she’s always doing Shark holes. 

CRAWFORD: The holes are not from Seals?

R. TOPI: Well, some of them have cuts from Seals, some of them are Sevengillers, some of them are bloody White Pointers. You’ve got a lot of fish there. And it’s a food source. Plus, the amount of Sharks that already went into there {Paterson Inlet] without that Salmon farm. 

CRAWFORD: Right. We’re going to get there. Remember when we did the chronology of your personal history?

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: What I’m trying to do is track your experiences matching that history. 

R. TOPI: Ok. 

CRAWFORD: So, we’re going to go from the old days, to the new days.

R. TOPI: Alright. 

CRAWFORD: When you were fishing with your Dad, did you ever see any White Pointers in Te Waewae? 

R. TOPI: No.

CRAWFORD: Or towards Fiordland? Did you ever see or hear about White Pointers up there?

R. TOPI: Up Fiordland there was the odd one. Never saw any down here [Te Waewae Bay]. There’s no Seals, it’s logical isn’t it? We get the odd Thresher on the beach here, you know? We got a couple along here the other day actually, because we tow Waewae. 

CRAWFORD: Threshers?

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: When you fished with your Dad around Ruapuke, you figure there was plenty of food to attract lots of White Pointers. 

R. TOPI: Oh, lots and lots of fish. Lots of Seals.

CRAWFORD: When you were fishing around Stewart Island, were there places that were known back in the day to be ‘sharky’?

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: Which parts?

R. TOPI: Well, Codfish for one. Because the same thing, so many Seals all around it.

CRAWFORD: And there were back in the day as well? 

R. TOPI: And there were back in the day as well. Back in the old days. 

We’ve caught White Pointers here at Ruggedy, at East Ruggedy Beach. We’ve caught them down here in Waituna [Bay], We’ve caught them down here at Redhead. Shark lsland - why did Shark Island get its name 'Shark Island'? [both chuckle]

CRAWFORD: When you say we caught ...

R. TOPI: In the bait nets. 

CRAWFORD: You and your Dad?

R. TOPI: No, me and Bob. 

CRAWFORD: You and Bob caught White Pointers in your setnets that you set to get bait for your Crayfish pots?

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: And you were getting Sharks tangled up?

R. TOPI: Yeah. Setting for Greenbone and Moki and that sort of thing. 

CRAWFORD: Was there seasonality to those White Pointers along the west coast of Stewart Island?

R. TOPI: There was always a season. 

CRAWFORD: I know, but did you notice them more in some seasons? 

R. TOPI: In the summertime. There were always more in the summertime. 

CRAWFORD: Did you notice anything by way of patterns in terms of the size and sex of the fish?

R. TOPI: No, not really. We got a few big ones though - a couple of 14-footers. And shit, one we couldn’t even get aboard. And then you’ve got all your Basking Sharks of course too. Basking Sharks all along there. 

CRAWFORD: Mason Bay? A lot of Basking Sharks? 

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. A lot of them. 

CRAWFORD: There are some people who have not seen Sharks before at all. And then they see one of these big Basking Sharks ...

R. TOPI: Oh, you’d shit yourself. 

CRAWFORD: One of the commercial guys I interviewed was pretty convinced that people who had not seen Sharks before, if they saw a big Basking Shark they would call it a White Pointer.

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: You’ve seen plenty of both. What are the major differences that anybody could tell?

R. TOPI: The head has a different shape, because they’ve got such a big mouth on them.

CRAWFORD: What else?

R. TOPI: Size. White Pointers don’t grow that big. 

CRAWFORD: No, but the Basking Sharks have to grow through the size of White Pointers to get to their maximum size. 

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. You don’t usually see small Basking Sharks. You don’t see like 10-footers or anything like that. I’ve never seen them in at Mason Bay, or along the beach, or at Codfish or anything like that. 

CRAWFORD: What about colouration or fin shape? 

R. TOPI: The Basking Shark might lay a bit through the back than the White Pointer. The Pointer’s sort of more straight up, rather than layed like the Basking Shark's layed back a little bit more. 

CRAWFORD: And colour?

R. TOPI: Pretty much the same when you see them. The Basking Shark’s probably a little bit more Brown, than the White's gray body. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Back to the Groper. You figure up the northwest corner of Stewart Island, Groper is one of the big attractions? 

R. TOPI: Oh, definitely. And again, Seals. But I’ve Gropered up there, and set lines and all you get is heads back. 

CRAWFORD: If you don’t see the Shark, it could be a Mako though. 

R. TOPI: Could be.

SCL You don’t exactly know which kind of Shark is taking your fish. 

R. TOPI: Pretty good idea in those waters.

CRAWFORD: Like you’ve said before, when something’s taking your fish - and then shortly thereafter you see a White Pointer - you can put two and two together. 

R. TOPI: Yeah. And you can tell by the fish that’s left, by the teeth marks. 

CRAWFORD: Have you ever seen or heard about two or more swimming together?

R. TOPI: Only time I ever heard of a lot of White Pointers being together, is during a Whale stranding.

CRAWFORD: Where would that have been?

R. TOPI: Well, Doughboy's a great spot for Whale stranding, the back of Ruapuke, old Ruapuke Beach on the east side - Whale stranding there one time. Colin should have told you this actually, because he was over there when we were kids - he said at high-tide the Pointers were coming in, just taking big hunks out of them, then back out again. Yeah, there’s groups. But that’s like pack hunting ... 

CRAWFORD: It’s hard to say for sure that it’s pack hunting, in a technical sense. Because they’re feeding together in one place, but we don’t know if there was a pack of them that was socially together prior to that.

R. TOPI: I’ve never seen more than one at a time.

CRAWFORD: Have you ever heard the old-timers talk about these animals forming packs out in the open ocean?

R. TOPI: No. Only in the eating. But from what we’ve seen on documentaries on TV they can be [place-eaters??] as well.

CRAWFORD: I want to get back to something you told me a while ago - about spending time around Paterson Inlet. That was from you earliest days. I’m presuming you spent a fair bit of time in dinghies and fishing and harvesting and that type of thing. When you were a kid, did any of the old-timers tell you to keep an eye out for White Pointers in the Inlet?

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Really? In Paterson Inlet?

R. TOPI: Yeah. At Miller's Beach. Around there somewhere. There were always Sharks there, when we were young.

CRAWFORD: Sharks yes - but White Pointers?

R. TOPI: Yeah, Pointers. Like the big Sharks. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah, yeah. 

R. TOPI: You don’t really see very many Blues in close. You don’t see many Sevengillers in close. Well, in certain areas the Sevengillers are. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. I hear they’ve been growing in numbers in Paterson Inlet. 

R. TOPI: Oh, yeah. And in Lords River. And in Pegasus. There’s lots more than what they actually think there is. 

CRAWFORD: But when you were a kid, you did have people tell you, that there were White Pointers in the Inlet? 

R. TOPI: Oh, definitely. 

CRAWFORD: They give you any ideas about what those animals were doing in Paterson Inlet?

R. TOPI: That’ll be feeding. Feeding, and there’s got to be a nursery in there. Look how protected it is. 

CRAWFORD: Anybody ever talk about seeing little White Pointers in there though?

R. TOPI: No. No one's seen little White Pointers. Like I said before, no one’s ever seen little Basking Sharks. They just ...

CRAWFORD: Show up 30-feet long?

R. TOPI: Yeah. [both chuckle]. I caught two Blue baby Sharks. About that long, when I was longlining by myself. They were that young that their skin wasn’t even sandy. It was as smooth as a baby’s bum. And it was like rubber. I threw one back over the side, and I kept one to show the boys. And the boys said "Oh well, you should have bloody kept them, because it would have made a nice - you know, something stuffed."

CRAWFORD: You've never seen or heard of little White Pointers in this region? 

R. TOPI: No. The wee-est White Pointer I ever would have seen, would have been around nine foot.

CRAWFORD: Nine foot - that would be the smallest? That’s still a substantial fish. 

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Any indication from anybody of courtship behaviour with the White Pointers? A couple dancing together? Or fresh wound marks, crescent-shaped, from courtship biting - Shark-on-Shark?

R. TOPI: The odd one’s got bite marks on it - the odd cow has. Never really seen very many on the male ones. But I don’t know of anyone that ever has seen anything like that. In my years, I’ve never ever heard anything. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Getting back to the increase in Seal abundance ... Protection for the Seals as prey, and protection for the White Pointers as predator. In terms of Seal numbers increasing - you said there’s always been a lot over at Codfish, there’s always been a lot at Ruapuke. 

R. TOPI: There’s always a lot everywhere. That’s why they done a cull, years ago. That’s why they used to hunt them. And the thing is that the greenies jumped on the wagon, and they think that they’re such a beautiful little thing. The thing about the Seals that I’ve got an issue with is, they’re wrecking the Muttonbird Islands. They’re wrecking the Muttonbird holes. So, have the Muttonbird Islands turned into Seal rookeries. Or are the Muttonbird Islands bird sanctuaries?

CRAWFORD: You said you've noticed an increase in abundance in Seals over the past 30-40 years?

R. TOPI: Oh, yeah. When we first went to [Kihuka??] ... Breakseas - we got burned out down the Cape, so we ended up going up to Breakseas. When we first went up there, might have been a dozen Seals on that island. 

CRAWFORD: That was roughly when? 1970s? 

R. TOPI: Yeah, it’d be ‘70s. Late-70s. And today, there’s hundreds of them - probably thousands of them. And they’re wrecking the bush. They’re flattening the holes for the Muttonbirds. So, the Muttonbirds can’t get in to use their holes. So, what happened to them? The Muttonbirds just don’t come back. 

CRAWFORD: The abundance of Muttonbirds has gone down, as the Seals have gone up?

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: That increase in Seal abundance - was that pretty steady, or was it over a short period of time? 

R. TOPI: No, no - it’s been steady. Some years you go down there, and you think "Shit. There’s not as many." But you go out two days later, and there’s fucking Seals everywhere. 

CRAWFORD: That was true of Ruapuke as well? The Seal increase was pretty steady?

R. TOPI: Yeah, pretty steady. But we keep it pretty culled too, you know? And that’s what I said, when those DOC people took us away there was three or four DOC people, there was two botanists, there was a Seal lady and a Seal guy from Canada, myself and another Māori representative. We were sitting around having tea, and the Canadian woman said to me “Well, you’ve got quite a bit of a Seal problem at Ruapuke too, Rik.” I said “No. Not a Seal problem up there.” And she says “How come you haven’t got a Seal problem?” I said “Well, I cull about 1500 a year. I don’t know what everyone else shoots.” And she was just stunned. And she said “You can go to jail for that.” I said “No. You can go to jail for that. I’m from Ruapuke, and we’re exempt from the Treaty of Waitangi. We’re all within ourselves. When we see that they need to be cleaned up over there, we’ll clean them up over there. We’re not standing around waiting on the treehuggers to jump on the wagon.” DOC isn’t allowed over there like that on a Māori island. They said to me "Why do you kill Seals?" And I said "For one, all the kids swim around there, and my dog gets bitten about once or twice a year by bloody Seals. So, you've got to bring it home, you know? There’s no doctors over there, there’s no hospitals over there. You’re a couple or three hours away from a hospital - by boat. So, we cull them so they’re not a problem."

CRAWFORD: Is there any interaction between your Seal cull and White Pointers at all?

R. TOPI: No, we usually do it in the wintertime. We just go and do the pups. The thing is, with a Seal if you keep clubbing the pups on the heads they don’t come back. They’ll go somewhere else, to a better place to bring up a family. And I proved that at Ruapuke, at a couple of beaches. Not a Seal in sight. Where the beaches used to be just laden with them. 

CRAWFORD: In terms of Shark-Human interactions. Are you aware of any aggression or attacks by White Pointers on Humans? Not boats now, but attacks on people? Anywhere from Fiordland, all the way around the Foveaux Strait or the Island?

R. TOPI: Have you heard of anything? The odd Pāua diver. 

CRAWFORD: Based on the number of White Pointers that are around here, it’s surprising how few interactions there have been. Especially when you consider how many interactions there are over in Australia. Sometimes it’s one per month over there. 

R. TOPI: Yeah. But different scenario there. A lot of them are surfers. You’re lying there like a Seal on the water. You've got a board, you've got your feet hanging out, you've got your arms hanging out. You look like a Seal, so of course you’re going to get eaten. Aren’t you? You’re flapping around on top of the water - and you know what I was saying about flapping, and how fast a Shark turns around for it? Kicking with your feet? It's a wonder there’s not more. I don’t know why there’s ... well, I know why there's not as many here - because the water’s that cold, and nobody usually goes surfing. [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: Yeah, but you talk about St. Clair, St. Kilda, Aramoana - back thirty years ago ...

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit different from here, but there's still thousands of surfers and hardly any attacks.

CRAWFORD: Sevengillers would be more the ones that worry the divers, I think - more than White Pointers. Sevengillers are nosy bastards. They don’t back off, they just keep coming at you. 

CRAWFORD: What do you know about the work that the DOC and NIWA scientists were doing on the White Pointers? 

R. TOPI: Well, if I read all the information after going off at them like I did, I'd know everything! They come and put these monitors all around Ruapuke. Had them everywhere. There was 14 or something - these Shark monitors. 

CRAWFORD: These were the hydroacoustic receivers? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. Ping when the Sharks get past. These are the ones that count the Sharks when they go past. 

CRAWFORD: Right - the listening device, the receiver. 

R. TOPI: I got a bit upset about this, because I’m a Kaitiaki. A Kaitiaki is like you’re a guardian of your waters at Ruapuke. And I’m a guardian to about this much [draws on chart - that’s our Ruapuke waters. I’m a Kaitiaki for that. I can write permits out for you. If you want a Shark, I’ll write you out a permit. I’ll be within the law to do it, because I’m a Kaitiaki and I’ve got a permit book. That’s our waters. And I come across, and they've put all these monitors all over the place. Nobody of that island was notified. One day, Sharon said to me "Oh, [Gal??] said to me" - that’s Bubba’s wife - "we got NIWA coming down today.” I said “Have you?” I said “When they get in here, give me a ring will you? I want to come down and have a wee word with them." So I come down, and there's a couple of blokes and a chick. I come and introduce myself. Told them where I’m from, from Ruapuke. And I asked them who gave them permission to put their buoys all around the place. "Oh, we don’t need permission." And I said "Well, you fucking do." And I said "Because you’re in our waters of Ruapuke. Them waters are sacred. And the Sharks are sacred." I said "Have you not read any of the history of Ruapuke?" And he's all green about it, and said "No, we haven’t." I said "Tell you what - best you go back, and you have a wee yak with your boss. And then you get your boss to ring me, eh?" And he said "I got something better. I’ll ring him right now." So he ring him right the, give me the phone, and I explained to the guy - one of the heads of NIWA - and he said "I can’t really comment Rick. Can I do a bit of research, and I’ll ring you back." I said "No worries." Two days later, he rang back. He starts crying with apologies on the telephone about what they’d done, coming into Māori land, and just walking over everybody. I said "Righto. Today you’ll come in, and you’ll put these buoys all around here without asking us." And I said "Tomorrow, DOC are going to come in. So DOC might be onshore here, and go ashore here, and go ashore here." And I said “Nobody’s asking. That island is fucking private. Māori land. You don’t fucking own anything, and you don’t own anything around it.” So, I got a call back two days later from his boss, the big boss of NIWA - full of apologies. “Oh, I’m sorry Rick. You know, we didn’t know. We just thought it was part of New Zealand, blah blah blah." Because he’d read the history up, before he got a hold of me, you see? And two days later, all them buoys were gone. 

CRAWFORD: The buoys were removed by them?

R. TOPI: The buoys were removed. Gone. Taken away, just like that. Because they’d lost one, and one of the guys I was talking to, I said “You’ve already lost one. So, you’re leaving your rubbish lying around on our bottom. That’s rude. That’s like me coming up to your place, and having a shit on your front lawn - isn’t it?” And he goes “Oh, well - that’s a very funny way you’re putting it.” And I said “Well, that's the way that I can think. And you can think the same way too. You’ve just come and shit on my lawn.” And I said, “So I’m here to clean it all up. And you’ve got of them things laying on the bottom.” He goes “Yes, they’re worth so-many thousand” whatever it was. I said “Good. I’ll pick you up on the wharf, and you can put your suit and you tank on, and we’ll go over and you can go to the bottom, and you’re going to retrieve it." And he goes "We’ll just put it down as lost, eh?” There was no way he was getting in the water, because there’s so many Sharks around the place [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: When did all this take place? 

R. TOPI: Two years ago, this went down. 

CRAWFORD: From the time that you first heard that the hydroacoustic receivers were being put in the water ...

R. TOPI: I didn’t know until they had all been put in the water. 

CRAWFORD: What was the lag between when they were actually put in, and when you heard about them?

R. TOPI: I don’t know.

CRAWFORD: On the order of days or weeks?

R. TOPI: Oh, no, no. It'd be months. Because I was Oystering, you see? I wasn’t there. 

CRAWFORD: You were away?

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: So, they were out there, they were deployed for months. Then you heard about them?

R. TOPI: No, I seen them, when I went back fishing. And they were here, there, and everywhere. And I'm like "What the hell are all these buoys all over the place?

CRAWFORD: Ok. What was the amount of time between when you saw them and when there was the meeting - the first meeting with them, when they were explaining?

R. TOPI: Not long. Like within a week, it was all done and dusted. They’d gone over there and got them all out.

CRAWFORD: Within a week - between the meeting, the series of phone calls, and those receivers being removed?

R. TOPI: Yeah. And anything that NIWA does around there now ... like they get their scientist boat down, do trawling and all that, because the trawling area runs into our ground as well. I get all the information.

CRAWFORD: But in the case of the White Pointer hydroacoustic receivers - there had been no prior consultation between you or anyone else from Ruapuke, and NIWA about the deployment of the receivers?

R. TOPI: No, nothing.

CRAWFORD: So, nothing in terms of the justification or rationale for that scientific research project?

R. TOPI: One of the DOC guys I got on with, was [Pete McClelland??]. Nice guy, actually. He’s more down to earth. He helped me with a few things. And he rung me up while I was fishing, Codding. He rung me up, and said “Rick, we’re going to fly across Ruapuke in a helicopter. One of the beacons had come off one of the Sharks, and it’s one of the Sharks that have been there the longest - had the beacon the longest. And it’s gone ashore, so we’re going to fly across, and pick it up.” And I said “Oh, best of British luck to you.” I said “I’d be bringing a steel helicopter.” I said “Because you’ll get shot out of the air.” I said "You know the story Pete. You’re not allowed there. You give me the GPS marks and I'll put it in my GPS, and I’ll find out where it is, and I’ll go pick it up for you." So I did. They gave me the marks, and I put it in my GPS, and just went straight to it and picked it up on the beach. And he was really thankful about it. But you know that’s the thing. They think they can just do, it because they’re DOC. They think they can just do it, you know? But you can’t just do it. If you let them keep doing it, they’re going to walk over everybody, like they’ve been doing. 

CRAWFORD: Like I told you before, the focus for the work I’m doing with these interviews, is on the ecology and on the effects of the cage tour dive operations. I don’t tell people that they can’t talk about management, or they can’t talk about relationships. But since this has become an important part of our discussion now - that’s for Ruapuke. What about Rakiura? What about Bluff? In terms of the Crown's Duty to Consult?

R. TOPI: They don’t. They need people like you, that’ll come in and go face-on and talk to people, and let the people know what's going on. Instead of just "Let’s go and do it boys." You know? It’s wrong. Government Departments - they’re all like that, unfortunately. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. Let’s get back to the effects of cage diving. For the White Pointers that have been exposed to Shark cage tour dive operations, do you think they associate the smell of food with the place - and that means, in this context, the area around Edwards Island? More than if there were no Shark cage dive operations?

R. TOPI: I don’t think it would make any difference. Some years they’re there, and some years they don’t turn up. Some years they’re there two or three years in a row, some years they’re not there two or three years in a row. Look how many new Sharks they tag each year, you know? It’s colossal. So, how many Sharks are there around here?

CRAWFORD: That brings up an important point, in terms of residency. What do you know about individual White Pointers being at or returning to the same place? We talked a little bit about it with that one Shark by Ruapuke ... do these Sharks tend to be resident? Or do they tend to be migrant - just on their way through? 

R. TOPI: Well, I don’t know if they leave. But they’re not resident, are they?

CRAWFORD: Or they might be resident in a broader region, as opposed to just around one island or one shoreline. 

R. TOPI: I don’t really see many of the Sharks that they tag at Stewart Island at Ruapuke. I don’t see a lot of tagged Sharks. 

CRAWFORD: Most of the Sharks that you see are not tagged?

R. TOPI: That’s right. 

CRAWFORD: And most of the tagging has taken place on the northeast side of Stewart Island.

R. TOPI: Yeah. Not at Ruapuke. 

CRAWFORD: To your knowledge, has there ever been any tagging at Ruapuke?

R. TOPI: They were tagging them over there, yeah. Because that’s why I had to go at the guy about - because they were chumming them in. I had to tell Mike and them that they’re not allowed to chum there. 

CRAWFORD: When was this?

R. TOPI: Two years ago, year and a half ago. Something like that.

CRAWFORD: Two years ago, they were chumming for White Pointers around Ruapuke? DOC or NIWA? 

R. TOPI: Both. Well, they both work together. 

CRAWFORD: You saw it? Or you heard about it? 

R. TOPI: I saw it. I was giving them GPS marks of Sharks I’d seen in the area, as well. One of the guys, he wasn’t too bad a guy. I didn’t mind him, because he used to ring me - you know? "Rick, we’re going to go to Ruapuke, and we’re going to do a bit of tagging today. Do you mind? Does anybody mind?" And I said "No, that’s what we want. We want the communication thing. We don’t want you just going over there, doing it whenever you want. We want to know what’s going on. That’s our waters."

CRAWFORD: Right.

R. TOPI: And we sort of worked like that with him. And it was pretty good. But it was just the fact that the thing that got up my wick, was ...

CRAWFORD: You said there was a meeting that went south?

R. TOPI: Yeah that was one about Mike and me. That was out here. 

CRAWFORD: Oh, that was the meeting at the Marae? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. We’ll get to that later. But the tagging that was taking place around Ruapuke about two years ago - that was something that was informally communicated to you in advance?

R. TOPI: No, it wasn’t - at the beginning. Until I started kicking up a bit of a stink, you know? 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Do you have any idea how many White Pointers they tagged?

R. TOPI: No. They would let you know, though. The Sharks over there, for some reason, weren’t like the ones in the bay. They wouldn’t come up. They were a lot more shy. 

CRAWFORD: The Sharks over at Ruapuke were more shy than the ones over at Stewart Island? Why is that?

R. TOPI: I don’t know. Wouldn’t have a clue. They wouldn't come up. They were too deep. They’d swim around, but they wouldn’t come up. With the other ones around Stewart Island, they’ll come right up.

CRAWFORD: With regards to the hydroacoustic work that DOC and NIWA did on the White Pointers - where the animals were tagged on Stewart Island side - did you ever remember hearing any of the results of that? 

R. TOPI: No. I wasn't interested. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. In terms of the animals that were tagged, and had GPS satellite tags on them - did you hear any of the results of that? 

R. TOPI: There was, yeah. I got a paper on one of them. They just sent me down a copy. 

CRAWFORD: Do you recollect anything important that you might have learned for that?

R. TOPI: No, just where they travel to. 

CRAWFORD: And where do they travel to? 

R. TOPI: Well, it was to [Dovey??] and back. 

CRAWFORD: So, big migrations? 

R. TOPI: Huge. Well, no bigger than the Muttonbird.

CRAWFORD: And that’s a very good point. Why do the Muttonbirds come all the way to get here?

R. TOPI: Muttonbirds come here because of the feed, and because the islands are made of peat. And Peat’s really easy to dig in. And it used to be predator-free. 

CRAWFORD: And what do the Muttonbirds do on that habitat that's made of peat, and easy to dig in?

R. TOPI: They dig holes to make a burrow, and then they nest in them. 

CRAWFORD: Remember when I asked you before "What was it about this place in general that you thought was important for the White Pointers?" Food was your number one. But it also gets back to that idea about reproduction. Is it still, in your mind, more likely to be just food? Or do you think it might be food plus reproduction for the White Pointers? 

R. TOPI: For the White Pointers, well ... with them being in the inlet, I reckon that it’s reproduction as well. Not saying that I’ve seen it. We haven’t seen small White Pointers, you know?

CRAWFORD: Right. But there's also a difference between White Pointers mating and White Pointers pupping, right? Coupling of the male and the female, and then pregancy for a number of months ...

R. TOPI: That’s right. 

CRAWFORD: So, pupping can take place ...

R. TOPI: Anywhere.

CRAWFORD: A very different place from the copulation. 

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: As a matter of fact, I've heard that Clinton Duffy [DOC] and Malcom Francis [NIWA] have been working on the presence of full-term females having their pups in bays on the North Island. Very different location and habitat from here. 

R. TOPI: I’ve never ever heard of, never ever seen, a little White Pointer. 

CRAWFORD: And nothing from the old-timers with regards to that? 

R. TOPI: No.

CRAWFORD: When you think of White Pointers throughout all of New Zealand - other than Stewart island - what other places do you know or have heard of, with White Pointers aggregating like around here? 

R. TOPI: Haven’t. 

CRAWFORD: South end of the South Island is it? 

R. TOPI: Pretty much. Pretty good food source down here. The water's cold. Lot of fish, because of the weather. You only get 150 days a year [fishing] - the rest of the time it's blowing. 

CRAWFORD: Right.

4. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - DIRECT EXPERIENCES

CRAWFORD: What's the first recollection you have of hearing about or seeing a White Pointer?

R. TOPI: Right here - in Henrietta Bay, when we were kids. 

CRAWFORD: Henrietta Bay, southwest corner of Ruapuke?

R. TOPI: Yeah, that’s where the anchorage is.

CRAWFORD: Roughly, when was this? 

R. TOPI: Ah shit, I was only very young. I was probably about eight. 

CRAWFORD: Were you with Dad, on his boat? 

R. TOPI: No, I was ashore. They had set a net - a baitfish net. 

CRAWFORD: You had?

R. TOPI: No, others had. And they pulled up a bloody Shark. It was about 18 or 19 foot. 

CRAWFORD: Got wrapped up the setnet? 

R. TOPI: Got wrapped up in the setnet, so we seen it then. We wound around the rocks, and eventually brought it up on the beach. Big Shark, big fish. I’d rather see it on beach, than in the water. 

CRAWFORD: Do you have any recollection of what time of year that was?

R. TOPI: No.

CRAWFORD: ... because you could have been on the island any time of the year. 

R. TOPI: Yeah, that's right. It was probably more like at Christmas-time, if anything.

CRAWFORD: Ok. 

R. TOPI: Because that’s when they’re about anyway. 

CRAWFORD: Do you remember - male or female? 

R. TOPI: No. Just a Shark. 

CRAWFORD: Do you remember if anybody cut it open?

R. TOPI: I think they did cut it open. I don't think us kids were there though. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Did you hear about what it might’ve been eating? 

R. TOPI: No. The usually got bugger all in them.

CRAWFORD: Ok - we’ll get to that. That animal was caught accidentally, but did they recognize any type of value in terms of the body parts?

R. TOPI: They cut the jaw out of it.

CRAWFORD: Cut the jaw out, as a trophy?

R. TOPI: Yeah. They always cut the jaw out of it, when they’re dead. 

CRAWFORD: Take the teeth, and then sell them? Or is it a cultural thing?

R. TOPI: Nah, just keep them, or give them away. I’ve got a bloody box of them at home. 

CRAWFORD: Was there any kind of cultural or family emphasis on White Pointer teeth at that time? 

R. TOPI: No, no. 

CRAWFORD: It was just known to be generally valuable?

R. TOPI: Yeah, it was more ... I suppose it’s wasting all the meat. But the teeth, if you’re going to cut the teeth out.

CRAWFORD: What about the oil? Anybody talk about the oil?

R. TOPI: No. Didn’t have the oil. 

CRAWFORD: Was there any kind of observation - yours or anybody else's - about White Pointers in this region during the winter? The off-season?

R. TOPI: I don’t think anybody sees as many Sharks as what I see, because on my little boat I just Blue Cod, you see? And I use Salmon guts for bait. So, I've got a cylinder of salmon guts, and a pot - and the smell comes out.

CRAWFORD: You’re getting salmon guts from the fish farm at Big Glory? 

R. TOPI: Yep, yep. Getting it on the Bluff side, they box it up. I go home, and get boxes of bait back, and use it for bait. And I’ve got a washer on deck, so the deck's washing all the time, so I'm not carrying that shit inside - it's washing off the back of my boat all the time, you see? 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

R. TOPI: So, that’s why I get a lot of Sharks following me around. I've had more Sharks following me than anybody. 

CRAWFORD: Let’s talk about that following behaviour. What’s the first time you remember a White Pointer following your boat?

R. TOPI: Several years ago. Some people don’t see White Pointers. I wouldn't go a week without seeing them. 

CRAWFORD: When they’re following you, what speed is your boat going - typically?

R. TOPI: Well, most times I’m usually stopped. 

CRAWFORD: You’re drifting? Or you’re anchored?

R. TOPI: What I do ... I've got six pots, lift them, set them, and then stop and clean my fish. So, I’m drifting. And then they come around when I’m cleaning my fish. Then I go back, lift my pots, stop and drift. That one I shown you the photo of - the photo of the White Pointer biting my stern - that one followed me for five hours. 

CRAWFORD: While you were doing your Codpot cycle?

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: You were fishing, cleaning, fishing, cleaning. 

R. TOPI: Yep. And my pots run from here, to the other side of [Tiwais??]. So, that's how far he was swimming. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly what’s that distance? 

R. TOPI: Well, it’d be a couple of miles. 

CRAWFORD: And when you’re under steam ...

R. TOPI: Eight knots.

CRAWFORD: Do you see the animal? Or do you just ...

R. TOPI: I go, and then when I stop - he’s back there again. And I know it’s him, because he’s got anti-fouling off my boat on him. 

CRAWFORD: He’s got anti-fouling on him? 

R. TOPI: Yeah, where they rub on the boat, or mouth the boat, or fucking try and bite my scupper off.

CRAWFORD: And there’s precious few animals going to have your anti-fouling on them. 

R. TOPI: Oh, yeah. I've got a Shark mark up the back of my boat, where I’ve got [a red bone, a white water line, and a blue hull.], and the blue's probably about this high. 

CRAWFORD: Metre, metre and a half? 

R. TOPI: And I’ve got skid marks this far up my hull, where he's coming out of the water, rubbing on it and mouthing the boat and coming up. I was just about to touch him on the nose, and I thought "I better not, in case he bites." But I grabbed him on the dorsal fin. 

CRAWFORD: You figure this was a Level 3 or a Level 4? Was this attitude and aggression these animals are showing? 

R. TOPI: Oh, they’ve got attitude. Some of them have, and some of them haven’t, you know? The younger ones more so than the bigger ones. You get a 12-footer and with anything like this [knocks on table] on the water - it’s around real quick, and then it comes back to the boat. That one that followed me around, if he would swim away, I'd just go [knocks again], knock on the side of the boat, and he just come straight back around, come straight for me. He just come up and mouthed the boat.

CRAWFORD: What’s with the knocking, and the animal coming back? 

R. TOPI: Oh, fuck if I know. 

CRAWFORD: When was the first time you knew that would happen? 

R. TOPI: Well, slapping on the water - like a fish would in distress. 

CRAWFORD: Ok, alright. Not too much knocking or splashing - just enough to get its attention?

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly, how many White Pointers do you figure you would have caught in your setnets along that northwest corner of Stewart Island? 

R. TOPI: Ah, shit. Be a dozen, anyway - you know, over the years. 

CRAWFORD: When you caught them, did you cut them open?

R. TOPI: No. You just cut the jaw out of them. You get them on the boat - and the bloody weight, then you’ve got to get them off the boat. So, why get them on the boat, when there's no need to. You pull them up, just chop the jaw out, and put them away.

CRAWFORD: Yeah. I mean for a 12-foot Shark, you’re talking the better part of a tonne. 

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: So, basically you cut the jaws out while the fish was still in the water? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. Just pull them up on the block, tie them up, and then cut the jaw. 

CRAWFORD: So, you never really knew what those fish were eating?

R. TOPI: No. They were just eating scraps and that, too. There’s not a lot of Sharks that I’ve cut open that have had a hell of a lot in them, to tell you the truth. 

CRAWFORD: Mostly empty guts?

R. TOPI: Yeah, pretty much. The females might have been different, but the males that we've cut ...

CRAWFORD: What would the females have? 

R. TOPI: Well, I wouldn't know. Never really cut a female open, because they’re too big to get aboard. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. Can be a massive difference in size between the females and males.

R. TOPI: Huge difference, huge difference. We’ve been Codding over here - it’s called the Chicken Patch - just north of the Saddle, out of Black Rock off the Bishops. And all the Mollymawks took off. And I’m sitting there cleaning on my [hench??], and the next minute there’s about this much of a side went past my [handrail??] on my boat - I should have showed you when we were there, and you would have got a better idea. "What the fuck?" I leaned over the side, and my heart just about stopped. This fish would have been 20-plus. Could have been even 25. It was fucking massive. And it was a cow. And I wouldn’t have gotten my arms around its guts to touch its side fins. That’ll give you the size of the guts on it. It was fucking big. Anyway, my cousin Jock, he was nearby with a couple of his mates aboard his boat. And I said "Look, you’d better get your asses over here. There’s a massive, fucking Shark swimming around us." He was two miles away, and he steamed over. And the same thing - every time it swam away, I'd just get a fish and flick it around in the water, and it would just turn around and come straight back to the boat. Old Bloody Jock, he come outside - and of course I’ve got the fish, flicking the water. And he’s fucking screaming at me "Get your fucking arm out of the fucking water." And when he comes around I said "What are you screaming about?" "You with your bloody arm in the water. You should never ever have your arm in the water. Who’s to say there wasn’t more swimming around there?" And I said "I didn’t see any." But massive compared to where these ones are down here. Like I said to Mike [Haines] the other day "How’s your little pup Sharks getting on down there?" And he goes "There’s fucking big Sharks there." I said "You’ve never seen a big Shark, Mike. Just come up here, and have a look up here [taps chart]." Because this is where a lot of Groper hang around here. And they love Groper. 

CRAWFORD: Have you ever seen White Pointers taking a Seal?

R. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: When and where? 

R. TOPI: I’ve seen them taking a Seal up at Muttonbird Island. Back in ... gotta be in the ‘80s.

CRAWFORD: Southern or Northern Titi Islands? 

R. TOPI: No. This was up here at Breakseas. And then I’ve seen ...

CRAWFORD: Whoa, whoa. What time of year?

R. TOPI: Was Muttonbirding time. So, it’d be around April-May.

CRAWFORD: Time of day? 

R. TOPI: Pass. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. What did ...

R. TOPI: It’d be in the afternoon, because we’d finished work. I’d just gone for a walk, sitting up the bank. And next minute - 'shwooo'. 

CRAWFORD: What did you see?

R. TOPI: I saw the Shark come up, and grab a Seal, and rip it to bits. 

CRAWFORD: How much of the White Pointer came out of the water? 

R. TOPI: Half of it. And people tell me that these Sharks don’t ever breach. 

CRAWFORD: People tell you what?

R. TOPI: That the Sharks down here don’t breach. They’re full of shit.

CRAWFORD: So, the animal tore the Seal up ...

R. TOPI: Yeah, and just flick - did the old superflick thing. He had a mouthful of bits and pieces. And then he came round and polished it up. Same at Ruapuke. The one at Ruapuke just came up and took it. 

CRAWFORD: Where was this? 

R. TOPI: Round the back. 

CRAWFORD: When? 

R. TOPI: That’d be five years ago, I suppose it would have been. 

CRAWFORD: You were on the island when you saw it?

R. TOPI: Yeah, just on the island. Just came for a wander, seeing thing as out at the rookery. You know, I do the Shark watch thing now. I never used to. They never used to worry me at all, but when I see that many of them - something tells me I should be keeping a little bit of an eye out. Keep notice.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Describe what you saw at Ruapuke. 

R. TOPI: Well, same thing. It was just a pup, and it was just taken - big splash and gone. 

CRAWFORD: Breakseas - was that a Seal pup?

R. TOPI: Well, it was a bit bigger than a pup, the one at Breakseas. Might have been a year-old, something like that. The one at Ruapuke was only a pup. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. 

R. TOPI: And they don’t like going out in the water, mate - they just don’t. I reckon they sense when Sharks are around. Like I can smell them. If a Shark’s swimming around - you can smell them. 

CRAWFORD: That’s the first time I’ve heard that. 

R. TOPI: You never heard that? No? I'll tell you - I can smell them.

CRAWFORD: A White Pointer, when it’s around - what does it smell like? 

R. TOPI: Just smells like Shark. The smell of ammonia. 

CRAWFORD: Was that something the old-timers knew as well? 

R. TOPI: Well, no - I mean, I’ve never asked anybody. It’s just my recollection. First thing that happens when a White Pointer comes around, is you got Mollymawks all around you - then shwoo, your Mollymawks all disappear. You know something’s going on. There’s a Shark there, you smell him. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s go back to the old-timers. Did they ever tell you there were certain places that were important to the White Pointers? Did they talk about why Codfish Island as being important or ... 

R. TOPI: Nobody talked about White Pointers. 

CRAWFORD: Because they didn't every really encountered them that much? 

R. TOPI: No. Nobody talked about White Pointers. Nobody harmed them. 

CRAWFORD: Did the White Pointers ever harass any of the old-timers? Anything like that?

R. TOPI: Well, yeah - you’ve got the stories. You've always got the stories, don’t you? You’re in their element. Like they come up and mouth the odd boat. And I know different shipwrights - like Tiny [Metzger] was one, you know? You get boats coming up, and they've got broken-off teeth in the rudder, and broken-off teeth in the bow.

CRAWFORD: What's with that?

R. TOPI: Well, I figure it’s just electricity going through the boat, and they just mouth it. You know “What is it?” They’ve got all those sensors and all that across their faces. I might be surmising here ...

CRAWFORD: Yeah, but that's what I'm asking you to do. Getting back to those Levels of Shark-Human interaction. Do you think those Sharks biting the boats - was that Level 3 curious or Level 4 attitude and aggression? 

R. TOPI: Oh, it's curious. They just mouth things, you know. Just like my floats - they mouth the floats but unfortunately their teeth are really sharp and they ruin the floats.

CRAWFORD: Ok. There’s no sense that they’re being aggressive with the floats? 

R. TOPI: Nah. They just come up, swim up, and just mouth them? Couple of bites, and then swim away. They might get aggressive if the rope gets tangled around them or something. Give it a bit of a thrash.

CRAWFORD: That picture you showed me on your phone, the animal at your boat - was that mouthing? 

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was biting the ass of the boat. 

CRAWFORD: When did that happen?

R. TOPI: Last year. February.

CRAWFORD: Where were you?

R. TOPI: I was at Ruapuke. 

CRAWFORD: South end? 

R. TOPI: South Point. 

CRAWFORD: What were you doing, at the time? 

R. TOPI: Codding. 

CRAWFORD: Cleaning? 

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: Animal comes around? 

R. TOPI: Birds take off - "Shark here!"

CRAWFORD: Shark circled first? 

R. TOPI: Oh yeah, he swims around for a while.

CRAWFORD: This is your smaller boat now? 

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: Which is how long? 

R. TOPI: 36 foot. 

CRAWFORD: And you’re fishing by yourself?

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: This animal circles around. Did you smell it?

R. TOPI: Yeah! I’m not taking the piss on the smell mate, honestly! 

CRAWFORD: And I’m not suggesting you are. The fact is that you’re the first person to describe this to me. I’m going to put a place holder on it, and follow-up in just a second. But the animal’s circling around, and you were watching it, and then what?

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. He’s watching me, and I’m watching him. Like he’s from here to you away.

CRAWFORD: And then the animal starts working on your prop? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. He comes up from behind, comes up ... the boat's like this, he comes up. I've got a scupper at the end of the boat. I’ve got a bit of rubber on it.

CRAWFORD: Yeah, yeah. 

R. TOPI: Well it’s open, and it hangs open a wee bit like this - and the Shark comes up, and gives it a shake like this. And you fucking feel the boat shaking. And I’m just looking at him, leaning over like this far away from his face, while he’s doing it. 

CRAWFORD: Was that the first time that a White Pointer did that your boat? 

R. TOPI: No, no. Happens all the time. These days, they come up to rub on your boat. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah. You told me about the Sharks rubbing on your stern. 

R. TOPI: Well, I don’t know what that is. Whether they've got an itch or a bit of loose skin, or something like that. And they just come in and then rub against the boat. They’ll come in, and upside-down they’ll just rub on the boat. They always rub their tummys for some reason. Don’t ask me. [both chuckle]

R. TOPI: They'd be all red, with the red anti-fouling I’ve got on the boat. 

CRAWFORD: When they roll over, do you see if they're male or female?

R. TOPI: Well, you can tell just by looking at them straight away. 

CRAWFORD: Yes, but is there a pattern in who’s doing the rubbing -males or females? 

R. TOPI: Nah, they both do. 

CRAWFORD: Little animals, big animals?

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: How many times has that happened?

R. TOPI: Oh, heaps, heaps. 

CRAWFORD: That raises a question. When you add up all the White Pointers you have seen ...

R. TOPI: I couldn’t. 

CRAWFORD: Put me in the neighbourhood. Is it 50? 

R. TOPI: It’d be more than 50. 

CRAWFORD: Is it 100? 

R. TOPI: It’d be 100 anyway. 

CRAWFORD: Ok, we call it 100 - and that's over 50+ years of being on the water?

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Where have most of those 100 Sharks been? 

R. TOPI: Most of them have been up here, around here - 

CRAWFORD: North of Stewart Island. 

R. TOPI: And a lot at Ruapuke. Heaps round there. And around Codfish, the reef down here at Masons and round Masons. Shark Island. 

CRAWFORD: Kind of an equal split across those?

R. TOPI: More Ruapuke than around this side. 

CRAWFORD: Is that because you've spent more time around Ruapuke?

R. TOPI: Probably.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Out of the 100 animals you’ve seen, if you tried to estimate the percentage split for the four Levels of Shark-Human interaction - which of those Levels would be most common?

R. TOPI: Probably the second, I’d say. 

CRAWFORD: The swim-by?

R. TOPI: The swim-by, and they just come and check you out. 

CRAWFORD: And then move on? 

R. TOPI: If you don’t do anything, they’ll just come round, swim around you half dozen times, and then swim away. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. In this system that’s a Level 3 because they circled a little bit. So, maybe a mix of Level 2 and Level 3. And I know Level 3 is kind of a broad category. 

R. TOPI: Yeah. There’s not many that come around that don’t come to mouth the boat, or rub on the boat. And all different boats that I’ve had - not just the one.

CRAWFORD: Out of the 100, what percentage of them would be be interacting with your boats like that?

R. TOPI: Well I’d say 50 percent of them come and rub against the boat or bite the boat. There’s not very many that don’t come around, and don’t circle the boat more than half a dozen times. 

CRAWFORD: What percentage would be the Level 4 - the attitude and the aggression?

R. TOPI: That’s up to the person on the boat, because what I do ... I got a piece of wire on the boat, and I thread a whole Cod on it and I throw it over the side, and have great time with it ...

CRAWFORD: Whoa, whoa. That’s Level 4, but not on their own.

R. TOPI: Have you ever held onto a 15-foot White Pointer that’d be 6 foot away from you?

CRAWFORD: No, I have not. 

R. TOPI: Well, I can tell you - it is so exciting, and it’s just so much of a thrill to feel the power of that animal.

CRAWFORD: Ok. But for me that’s a completely different category, because now the animal's not just responding to you - you’re responding to the animal, and the animal’s coming back on top of your response. 

R. TOPI: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Coming back to the Levels - if it was 50 percent for the Level 3s, roughly what percentage for the Level 1 observation and the Level 2 swim-by's? 

R. TOPI: Not that many - just as observations, or swim past. 

CRAWFORD: Say 20 percent?

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. Something like that.

CRAWFORD: Then 50 percent for Level 3s. Then if I do the math right, we've got 30 percent leftover. That’s the Level 4s. Let’s not consider you actually baiting the Sharks for a second ... of the animals that were Level 4 on their own, what were they doing?

R. TOPI: Just by mouthing, by rubbing and pushing the boat.

CRAWFORD: Have they ever tried to get up and put their weight down on the stern, or anything like that?

R. TOPI: No, my boat’s too high for that. It’s probably this high out of the water. 

CRAWFORD: We're talking like a metre and a half to two metres. 

R. TOPI: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Now let's get back to those Level 4B Sharks - from time to time you have baited and played a White Pointer.

R. TOPI: I’ve got heaps of those.

CRAWFORD: You’ll put a Cod on a line, you baited the Shark ... do  you put some kind of shank in there?

R. TOPI: No, no, no. Don’t need hook on it. Just to play with it. 

CRAWFORD: Just a fish on a line. 

R. TOPI: Yeah. Stainless wire. Rope, they would just chomp through that. I used to hook them, but it got a bit dangerous. 

CRAWFORD: What does that mean? 

R. TOPI: Well, I near got tangled up in the rope one day, when the Shark took off, and it got wrapped round my legs, and I just about went over the side with the Shark. So that was the end of the hook, fishing by yourself. 

CRAWFORD: Around Ruapuke, did anybody else fish like you? Generally the same waters, same season, same gear?

R. TOPI: Yeah, there was. Not me now, like I've retired from that now - on the Oysteboat now. Sick of being by meself. There was other people that saw them, but they didn’t see as much as me, because of the fact that I used Salmon guts, and it's dripping off the back of my boat all the time. That’s a big enticer. 

CRAWFORD: Right. I want to talk to you about social behaviour in these White Pointers. Especially seeing more than one Shark at a time - and not necessarily in a place where they’re feeding. Have you ever seen White Pointers swimming around in groups of two or more? 

R. TOPI: Not last Christmas, but the Christmas before, we went to come home from Ruapuke and I said to the Missus "Oh, we’ll load the boat up the day before." And I said "We’ll go fishing for a day, so I've got freight to bring home." Righto. So, I had three pots on the east side of South Point, and I had three pots on the west side. And I said to the Missus "We’ll shoot around and do the east side first, because the Cod are quite good there, last time that I was there." Picked the first pot up, set it, picked the second pot up, set it, picked the third pot up - went to set it, and all I could hear was my son  “FFFFFUCKING HELL!” My son was only nine, and I'm thinking "What’s he doing screaming?" I turn around and see this great big massive patch of frothed up water, like something just dropped. White Pointer had leapt and took a Seagull out - and he watched it come right out of the water. Took the Seagull out - right out of the water. All I seen was the splash - I didn’t actually see the Shark. 

CRAWFORD: Seagull or Mollymawk?

R. TOPI: A Seagull - a Blackback. 

CRAWFORD: Sitting on the water?

R. TOPI: It was in the air!

CRAWFORD: It was flying??

R. TOPI: Just off the water, he said. And this Shark just come straight out of the water going for it, hit the water - and that’s what frothed all the water up, because it was flipping around you know?

CRAWFORD: Wow.

R. TOPI: So that was alright. We drifted around for ten minutes, quarter of an hour - waiting on it to come back. Tapping the water and all that - it didn’t come back. That’s alright, set the pot, come around this side of Ruapuke, lifted the other three, and I said to Carrie "Well, it’s blowing easterly, we’ll go into the island in the lee, and have a bit of a cleanup." Went in there. [sniffing] I could smelled a Shark. And there’s a fucking Shark right there beside us. I said “Look - there’s that Shark!” And he goes “No, no. That other one was a lot bigger than this one.” So, there's within 20 minutes, two Sharks within the width of the [Ruapuke] strait apart. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Different Sharks, same region, roughly the same time. You talked before about feeding, and specifically you talked about Gropers on the northwest side of the island. You also talked about Seal pups and adults. But what do you know about White Pointers scavenging? 

R. TOPI: Probably do. When we get a Blue Cod, we usually chop the head off and pull the guts out - that goes over the side. So, they're not swimming around you, just because they like you. They swim around to get a feed.

CRAWFORD: You ever see these animals actually taking your Codframes?

R. TOPI: When I throw them over the side, and they’re swimming around there - yeah. 

CRAWFORD: When you were cleaning fish - you were typically drifting. Is that right? 

R. TOPI: Yes. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever moor or anchor, and then clean at a fixed station?

R. TOPI: No. Unless I’ve got a lot of fish, and then I’m on the anchorage, on the moorings. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. But you didn’t have a specific cleaning station that you always went to?

R. TOPI: No. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever heard about cleaning stations over on the island, where there would have been interactions with White Pointers? 

R. TOPI: No. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. 

R. TOPI: When I go into Henrietta at Ruapuke, and I clean - just say I've got ten cases of fish to clean, well there’s three cases of fish heads on the bottom.

CRAWFORD: Yeah. 

R. TOPI: I come out in the morning, and there’s not a head left on that bottom. So, what’s eating them up? At nighttime in the bay, it just livens up livens up with Sevengillers and Dogs [Dogsharks]and White Pointers, you know?

CRAWFORD: Let’s talk about that, because not a lot of people have observations at night - about White Pointers, in particular. 

R. TOPI: Haven’t seen a hell of a lot of White Pointers at night. But shitloads or Sevengillers, and Dogs and Greyboys and that, come in at nighttime. After we’re cleaning. 

CRAWFORD: Do you have any reason to believe the White Pointers are more or less active at night?

R. TOPI: I don't know. I’ve never been out and seen them at night. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. You talked before about the intelligence of these White Pointers.

R. TOPI: Yeah, well they’re a hell of a lot more clever than what you think. 

CRAWFORD: What’s the best example that you have - that these Sharks are very clever? Either from what you’ve seen, or what you’ve heard? How do we know that these Sharks are not silly? How do we know we know that they are actually so clever? 

R. TOPI: You can have a fish on a line that’s got a hook on it, and that Shark will came and bite that fish in half - and they’ll leave that hook in that fish, in the pieces that it hasn’t eaten.

CRAWFORD: You reckon that the animal senses and knows that the hook is in there?

R. TOPI: Well yeah, bloody hell. I've got a mate that works on - or used to work on, a Toothfish boat in the ice. And they had the same problem with the Killer Whales. All they’d get was a big longline of heads. All the Killer Whales would be gone, because no Killer Whales had been hooked. They’d just eat the fish, you know?

CRAWFORD: Have you ever experienced a situation where you had a fish on a line with a hook, where a White Pointer took the whole fish - and got hooked accidentally?

R. TOPI: No, because they usually bite the line off.

5. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS

CRAWFORD: You've got more direct encounters with White Pointers than just about anyone I've talked to - with the exception of Peter and Mike, who run the cage dive tour operations. What about other people's encounters? Anything stand out?

R. TOPI: I’ll tell you a story. Colin should have told you this, my brother, he was longlining - did he tell you when he was longlining?

CRAWFORD: Potentially. But don’t worry about whether he told me, you just do what you do.

R. TOPI: Yeah. Well, he was longlining - and they got a couple of Sharks - a couple of 12-footers. Another Shark come up, come beneath one of them, bit it off behind the gills - didn’t shake, just rolled and went away. That big a Shark would have taken the smaller - the 12-footer. That was in Caroline. 

CRAWFORD: Caroline Bay?

R. TOPI: Did he tell you that story?

CRAWFORD: I don’t believe he did. 

R. TOPI: Well he should have. Because that was one of his Sharks. 

CRAWFORD: He told me about long lining, I think ... he had a double-header and they towed them backwards to port. 

R. TOPI: Yeah, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: But you're talking about a different experience of his. A White Pointer, 12-foot, hooked up ... and another, larger White Pointer comes in?

R. TOPI: Underneath.

CRAWFORD: Grabs it, up to the pectorals? 

R. TOPI: Up to the side fins. Chomp. 

CRAWFORD: Gone. 

R. TOPI: My brother Paul - my younger brother - he was on the back of the boat watching it. And he just went white. They were just stunned at what had happened right in front of him. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly when was that? 

R. TOPI: Oh, got to be in the ‘80s or early-90s. 

6. effects of cage tour dive operations

CRAWFORD: With regard to the Shark cage dive operations - have you seen them in action? 

R. TOPI: Yeah. There was no Shark around. 

CRAWFORD: But you saw the process?

R. TOPI: Yeah, I seen them in the water. Seen them drop the cage in, hop in. 

CRAWFORD: Over at Edwards Island? 

R. TOPI: Yep. Don’t know what everyone’s going on about. 

CRAWFORD: Do you think that the cage tour dive operations have an important, lasting effect on the White Pointers? 

R. TOPI: I hope it does, for them. I hope the Sharks are always swimming around the cages. 

CRAWFORD: Why?

R. TOPI: Well, they’re leaving all the divers alone aren’t they?

CRAWFORD: Ok. That has come up once or twice before. But do you think the Sharks - after having been exposed to the cage tour dive operations ... has there been an important and lasting effect on them? Have they changed?

R. TOPI: You’ve talked to Pete about this, haven’t you? 

CRAWFORD: Both Peter and Michael. 

R. TOPI: Yeah. And of course they’ve changed. Because when Pete was there last year, he reckoned it was just the sound of the boat the Sharks were coming to. That they knew it was his boat - so there’s a change in itself. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. Let's add one piece of complexity about the possible effects at a time. Do you think the White Pointers that are exposed to the Shark cage tour dive operations, they would associate the smell of food with that particular boat? 

R. TOPI: Yeah, well that’s what Pete was reckoning. 

CRAWFORD: Something about his boat - whether it was the hull colour, the sound of the motor, electro-magnetic field or what?

R. TOPI: It’d be the sound, I’d say. Because they’re wired those Sharks, aren’t they?

CRAWFORD: Did Pete explain to you why he reckoned the animals were recognizing his sound?

R. TOPI: No. 

CRAWFORD: Do you figure that if a White Pointer had been exposed to the Shark cage tour dive operations at Edwards Island - if it detected that same boat in a another place - would the Shark be more inclined to approach and investigate?

R. TOPI: Probably, I’d say. 

CRAWFORD: Do you think these Sharks are capable of making that association? 

R. TOPI: Well, they’re not silly. 

CRAWFORD: I have heard that phrase many times, now. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. The last part of me adding one level of complexity to that question ... White Pointers that are exposed to the cage tour dive operations - do you think that they would associate the smell of food with the presence of Humans in the water, such that if they saw Humans in the water someplace else at some other time, they would be more likely to investigate those Humans? 

R. TOPI: No, because they’re feeding them isn't caught down here. Mike and them are using bloody Bluefin or Tuna or something. 

CRAWFORD: Fair enough. And I think I said this before, but if not - we were basing all of this under the permit system as it is right now. Neither of the Shark cage tour dive operators are allowed to actually feed the Sharks. 

R. TOPI: Well, what's chumming? 

CRAWFORD: There’s a berley, but it’s got to be a fine mince. And there can be a fish, in this case Tuna, as a throw bait to guide the Sharks. There are restrictions. If a Shark happens to take their throw bait. They can’t just be throwing Cod frames out, or anything like that. So that’s why I was asking about the association between the specific smell of food, and the place or the boat or the Humans. 

R. TOPI: Be pretty hard on that one, really. If they’re raising Sharks, and that boat comes out every day - well, of course they’re going to get trained up to it, aren't they?

CRAWFORD: To the point where they would ...

R. TOPI: To the point where they'll ... I don't know about following other boats, but I know they’ll be waiting there on that boat. If they’re getting chummed.

CRAWFORD: Ok. What about people in the water? 

R. TOPI: I don't know.

CRAWFORD: Alright. I asked the first part - did you think that the animals exposed to the Shark cage dive operations, if they would associate the food with the place - Edwards Island - in a way that would have an important effect on their behaviour. You said no. Do you think that those Sharks would associate the presence of a boat - not just the Shark cage dive boats, but any boat in general? Such that, if they saw any boat someplace else at another time - they would be more likely to investigate?

R. TOPI: I don't know. Sharks always investigate.

CRAWFORD: Sharks are curious. 

R. TOPI: Oh yeah, they are curious. Until you do something to them, then they’re gone. Like if you take an oar, and poke them in the guts. They’re gone. They don’t come back.

CRAWFORD: But would they associate the smell of food with the presence of a boat on the surface? Let’s say the Sharks are someplace else, and they see a boat on the surface. Are they more likely to go to check out that boat?

R. TOPI: I couldn’t say no, because of the amount of boats that are cleaning over the years - all the guts and shit's going over the side.

CRAWFORD: Ok. I mean, you have always been associated with fishing. Either fish on lines, fish cleaning. So you don't really have a lot of observations, other than fishing.

R. TOPI: That’s right. 

Copyright © 2019 Riki Topi and Steve Crawford