Ty Jenkinson

YOB: 1984
Experience: Scubadiver, Pāua Diver, Mussel Farmer, Eco-Charter Skipper
Regions: Banks Peninsula, Stewart Island
Interview Location: Halfmoon Bay, Stewart Island, NZ
Interview Date: 18 January 2016
Post Date: 04 July 2020; Copyright © 2021 Ty Jenkinson and Steve Crawford

1. EXPERIENCE IN AOTEAROA/NZ COASTAL ENVIRONMENTS

CRAWFORD: Ty, I believe you said you were born in Christchurch? 

JENKINSON: Correct. 

CRAWFORD: When was that? 

JENKINSON: I’m thirty-one years old. I was born in 1984. 25th of the 12th, 1984.

CRAWFORD: Did you spend a significant amount of time during you early years, on and around coastal waters of Banks Peninsula, northern South Island?

JENKINSON: I spent quite a bit of time diving around Kaikōura, and also up in the Marlborough Sounds.

CRAWFORD: This was as a young lad? 

JENKINSON: This was more later on. As a young kid, we did spend all of our Christmas breaks and holidays at a place called [Waikuku??] Beach, which is about forty minutes out of Christchurch. The chart doesn’t specify here, but there is a beach here, it’s only a fairly small community. We spent a lot of our time there. As kids, we’d go out there for four weeks at a time, over the summer break, summer holidays. Basically, be in the water every day, swimming. 

CRAWFORD: That would start at roughly what age? 

JENKINSON: Right from when I was born. Right through till probably fourteen years old. 

CRAWFORD: Did your family have a bach or a caravan ...

JENKINSON: We just rented a holiday home out there. It was my own immediate family, plus Aunties and Uncles, Cousins and everything. We’d all go out there. 

CRAWFORD: It was adult supervision, to begin with?

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Going to the holiday home, that continued till you were about fourteen. At what point were you and your Cousins or mates able to be out on the water without supervision?

JENKINSON: I guess that would have been the last couple of years of that. Because I have an older Brother as well, who actually also lives here on the Island ... and then I have a younger Brother, who also lives here, but he’s a couple years younger than us again. My older Brother and I, we would be able to go down to the beach by ourselves, probably from when I would have been about ten years old. 

CRAWFORD: OK. When you were on the beach, you were swimming? 

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Any other type of activities then? Boating, fishing, harvesting? 

JENKINSON: Not so much then, not when we were younger. 

CRAWFORD: When you were on the beach, was it the kind of beach that would have New Zealand Surf Life Saving monitors? Where they set up the beach flags and have lifeguards actively watching?

JENKINSON: Yeah, definitely. Then as I got a little bit older, when I was seventeen years old, I left school and did my Advanced Instructor's dive certificates. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let's hold that diving for just a minute. During your early years, up to and including fourteen, did you spend any time further north or down south along the South Island coast? Any significant amount of time around the water?

JENKINSON: Not really. What I didn't mention before, was that we have had family here on Stewart Island for quite some time. So, once when I was probably twelve, and once when I would’ve been about fifteen - we came down to Stewart Island to stay with my Mom’s Sister, my Auntie.

CRAWFORD: Here in Halfmoon Bay?

JENKINSON: Yeah. [Jan and Alister Eade??]. Don’t know if you know that name - they're still here on the Island. We came down and spent a couple of weeks with them. That was probably the first time that I really got involved into any kind of diving. Just freediving at the time. Going out, trying to get Pāua, and whatever else was around. A little bit of spearfishing.

CRAWFORD: Roughly, what age was that?

JENKINSON: First time would’ve been when I was twelve. And then the second time, I was either fourteen or fifteen, around about that. So, that was my first introduction into - not just playing on a surf beach ...

CRAWFORD: Maybe some boating as well?

JENKINSON: Yeah, definitely boating as well.

CRAWFORD: Dinghy’s? 

JENKINSON: And bigger boats.

CRAWFORD: Outboard boats? Commercial fishing boats?

JENKINSON: Yes so, [Alister Eade??] who is my Uncle, he has one of the Mussel Farms here. So, he has smaller motorboats, as well as big barges, and things like that. He would take us out on the boats to go perhaps Oyster dredging for the morning, or something like that. And then that afternoon, we’d come back, and I might do a shore snorkel somewhere. Lonnekers Bay would be the most common place. Because that’s where he lives, right over there. 

CRAWFORD: So, those was two pretty significant coastal years in your mid-teens?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Let’s go back up to Banks Peninsula. You were just about to tell me something about getting scubadive certification?

JENKINSON: That’s right. When I was seventeen I left school, and I did my Advanced Instructor's dive ticket through SSI. Most of the diving that we did ... although we did a little bit in Diamond Harbour, right at the head of Lyttleton, the majority of the diving we did was a couple of hours north - up here in Kaikōura. Excellent diving up there, and there are marine reserves and different things. So, it was a good friendly area.

CRAWFORD: It seems like it was fairly compressed. When you started scubadiving, you got in hard - and you went all the way though to advanced level certification?

JENKINSON: Yep.

CRAWFORD: The scubadiving that you were doing, on the way to that certification, did that include both Banks Peninsula and Kaikōura?

JENKINSON: Yeah. It involved a number of places, in fact. We did some in Banks Peninsula, some up in Kaikōura, some up here in the Marlborough Sounds near around Picton. Around that area there are a few wreck dives, and things like that. But then as well, we would do dive in places like Lake Coleridge. 

CRAWFORD: Freshwater dives?

JENKINSON: Yeah, freshwater dives. And we did some in irrigation ponds - limited visibility dives. So, there was a whole broad spectrum of different diving. 

CRAWFORD: In that set of different experiences, roughly what was the split between marine diving and freshwater diving?

JENKINSON: Probably 90% marine.

CRAWFORD: And within the marine diving, what was the split between hardcore training, versus recreational diving?

JENKINSON: 90% training, and a very small percent would have been recreational.

CRAWFORD: Right. Within the training dives then, you were working on certification. Were you doing any commercial diving during that time?

JENKINSON: No.

CRAWFORD: Was there a seasonality to your diving up north? Was it diving some seasons, and not others? Or was it pretty much year-round?

JENKINSON: Year-round, yep.

CRAWFORD: Approximately, how many times a week or month, would you have been diving during that period?

JENKINSON: Probably ten dives a week.

CRAWFORD: Wow. That's intense.

JENKINSON: Maybe if we averaged it out, it would be a little less. It might only be six or seven dives a week, because there might be a week where we would be in the classroom. Even then, we’d still be doing practice dives in the pool and things like that. But yeah, it was intensive.

CRAWFORD: I’m interested ... was there a component of your training that was specifically oriented to marine life? The relationships between divers and marine life, in general?

JENKINSON: No. It would’ve been a very small part, like introduction to fish and ecology. But it was not comprehensive at all. 

CRAWFORD: Nothing in terms of evaluating risks, management of risks - all that kind of stuff?

JENKINSON: Not related to the fish or the marine environment. Sort of really driven towards safety, and management of people and yourselves. 

CRAWFORD: Right. During that time, were you doing anything else substantial around the water - other than diving? Were you boating or fishing or doing anything else?

JENKINSON: No. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. I'm guessing that dive training period took you about the age of nineteen or so? 

JENKINSON: I started when I was seventeen, and it was only a one-year course. So, I was eighteen at the end of that. That’s why I moved down to Stewart Island in fact - was for diving, I thought there may be some work down here. 

CRAWFORD: So, soon after you were finished your certification, you decided to move to Stewart Island?

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: You had family here, you had history here. But you thought potentially there were some commercial opportunities for diving? 

JENKINSON: Yeah. I didn’t put any research into that. [chuckles] I just thought maybe it would be worth coming down for a look. As it turned out, there wasn’t anything in the way of dive guiding or instructing or anything like that here. So, that’s consequently why I ended up working for DOC. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. What year was that, when you came down?

JENKINSON: Must’ve been 2002. Yeah, something like that.  

CRAWFORD: That would’ve been roughly five years prior to the beginning of cage diving?

JENKINSON: Yeah. Certainly was not even a blip on the map then. I didn’t know anything about it.

CRAWFORD: Alright. You were 18 years old in 2002, when you moved to Halfmoon Bay. When you got employed by DOC, what kind of job were you doing?

JENKINSON: The job description was as a Field Ranger, I think it was. But the team I was part of, was doing track and hut maintenance.

CRAWFORD: You may have taken vessels to get from place to place, but you were based here at Halfmoon Bay?

JENKINSON: Yep.

CRAWFORD: How long did you have that job for, roughly? 

JENKINSON: Two years.

CRAWFORD: When you were on the water in transit or whatever, roughly what regions were you be travelling around?

JENKINSON: Mostly, the northern part of the Island. The network of tracks that we were involved in maintaining, went from Halfmoon Bay, the Northwest Circuit, right the way up around the Island here. All of this, back through the middle here.

CRAWFORD: So, all the way over to Mason’s Bay, and then back?

JENKINSON: Yeah. Then also to Doughboy Hut there. Not a lot of work on this track, but a little bit of work on the Rakeahua Hut.

CRAWFORD: Ok. That’s up to Freshwater River?

JENKINSON: That’s up the Rakeahua River. There are two lots here. There’s the Freshwater River here where the river comes up, and then there’s the Rakeahua River.

CRAWFORD: So, basically the whole northern part of the Island?

JENKINSON: Yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Coastal and inland. Coastal in terms of getting from A to B. During that two-year period that you worked for DOC, did you spend any significant time with any other DOC initiatives on the water? Or did they make use of your advanced dive certification?

JENKINSON: No. However, I would regularly do recreational dives while we were away.

CRAWFORD: Right. Did you also spend time recreational boating?

JENKINSON: Yeah, little bit. But being new to the Island, I didn’t really have access to boats. I didn’t know as many people then as I do now. So, my recreational boating was fairly limited. 

CRAWFORD: So, when you were diving ... for the most part it was shore-based? 

JENKINSON: Yeah. For example, if we were staying at one of the huts - say Yankee River - we’d be based there for five day doing work on the huts, and immediate tracks around. So, while we were there, we’d do our days’ work. In the evening, I’d go for a shore-based dive around the rocks to get a couple of Pāua or something like that for dinner.

CRAWFORD: Give me a sense of where the huts are, generally. Just an overview.

JENKINSON: There is a whole series of them. The first one starts here at Port William. The other comes up to Bungaree, which is here. The next one is Christmas Village, which is about here. Long Harry is out here. Yankee River here. Next one is East Ruggedy Hut here. There is one right at the top, Big Hellfire Hut which is about here somewhere. The next one is right down at Mason Bay. There is another one through here at Doughboy. Then there is the Rakeahua Hut, the Freshwater Hut, North Arm Hut, Fritz Camp Hut.

CRAWFORD: Working those huts, that really took up the bulk of your time?

JENKINSON: Certainly did, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. Anything over here around Codfish? Are there any huts along there? 

JENKINSON: Yes, there are. But one hut is up here - you’re probably a couple hundred meters above sea-level there.

CRAWFORD: Yeah, yeah.

JENKINSON: I never really spent a lot of time there. The other one would be East Ruggedy, which is here. But I haven’t really spent any time at that one, either.

CRAWFORD: Alright. Generally, in terms of the recreational dives you did during that two-year period working with DOC - were there places you did much more diving than other places?

JENKINSON: The east coast for sure.

CRAWFORD: Much more than the west coast of Stewart Island?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Was that because you were working more along the eastern section? Or was it just better diving, or what? 

JENKINSON: Probably that we were working along here more, for sure. But also, weather and conditions-wise, we get mostly west and sou'west conditions. You're on the lee shore, so it’s easier diving.

CRAWFORD: Alright. That was two years working with DOC, which takes us up to 2004?

JENKINSON: Yep. Then I left DOC, and I went to Perth in Western Australia for a year. Just for a change.

CRAWFORD: For how long?

JENKINSON: For a year.

CRAWFORD: Not that it is directly relevant, but did you spend time in the water over there?

JENKINSON: Yeah, limited time there to be honest. Not really any diving. More just surfing and swimming at the beaches. 

CRAWFORD: Was surfing a relatively new activity for you over there?

JENKINSON: Well, at [Waikuku??] Beach, when we were kids. Surfing and bodyboarding, and all of that. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. That was a year in Australia. What happened next, in 2005?

JENKINSON: Then I came back to Stewart Island. I worked for a brief time for a different sort of charter tour company. Just as crew on board their boat. 

CRAWFORD: Was that 'charter' as in transport, or 'charter' as in eco-charter?

JENKINSON: It was kind of a funny outfit. They're not here on the Island any longer. The trips we were running on the boat were kind of directed at younger people. More like almost adventure tourism type thing. We would go out for the afternoon, we might spend four hours on the boat. But in amongst that, we would kit everyone out in a wetsuit, and we would all go for a snorkel somewhere. Where myself and another crew guide, one of us would be in the dinghy, and one of us in the water with the people. We would spend an hour or so in the water, having a look around the rocky shore. And then jump out, have a shower, go for a paddle, and sit on kayaks around a similar area. That would almost exclusively be within Paterson Inlet - again, just because of conditions, weather-wise. 

CRAWFORD: Were you launching from Golden Bay? 

JENKINSON: No. We would come from Halfmoon Bay.

CRAWFORD: Then out around Ackers Point?

JENKINSON: Yeah, around Ackers Point. One of the most common places we would go to then, was just in here. There are areas in here that are reasonably calm and sheltered. There's plenty of juvenile Pāua through there, lots of fish to see. 

CRAWFORD: Over by the Neck?

JENKINSON: Yeah. Pipi Rocks is this area over here. And around the corner from there is a place called [Lee's Green??], which is a really easy, friendly dive. Especially for people who have not spent any time in the water.

CRAWFORD: This kind of mixed free-diving and kayaking charter - was that the bulk of the time that you spent working with that tour company?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Was it a seasonal job?

JENKINSON: It wasn’t seasonal. But when I arrived back to the Island, I only worked for them for probably about six months. Then they ended up going bankrupt, and left the Island.

CRAWFORD: Ok. That was six months, and it was focused on free-diving and kayaking ...

JENKINSON: And a little bit of fishing as well.

CRAWFORD: Linefishing?

JENKINSON: Linefishing. As part of that four hour trip. We’d spend an hour or so in the water, an hour in a kayak. and then an hour somewhere out here.

CRAWFORD: So, you’d go on the outside, and do some linefishing for Blue Cod? Get a feed?

JENKINSON: Yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Alright. That was for six months. Then what happened? 

JENKINSON: After that, I kind of found myself in between work. I didn’t really have a lot to do. I should also mention that in amongst this time, I had done a little bit here and there for local Pāua divers, dinghy-boying. Just opportunistic work, really. Perhaps it might be over a long weekend at DOC, so I wasn’t working - I had a four-day break. I might do a day or two for a local Pāua diver, perhaps. 

CRAWFORD: Where were your Pāua experiences, generally?

JENKINSON: Everywhere.

CRAWFORD: All the way around the Island?

JENKINSON: Yeah, a lot of different places then. The whole time that I've been here on the Island, I've done that sort of thing quite regularly. 

CRAWFORD: So, from that point forward, including up till now?

JENKINSON: Yeah. Well, now in fact I’m probably doing more diving than I do dinghy-boying for people.

CRAWFORD: So, you contract out as a free-diver for their Pāua operation? 

JENKINSON: Yes. People that you’ll know the names of. Like Luke Simeon, perhaps? 

CRAWFORD: Yes, I know Luke.

JENKINSON: He’s a Pāua diver, among other things. I just might work out that in my charter schedule I might have had three or four days off, a wee block or a week perhaps of nothing. So then, he would go by himself anyway, just him diving and one dinghy-boy. 

CRAWFORD: If you were available ...

JENKINSON: And then I’ll dive with him as well. 

CRAWFORD: Yeah.

JENKINSON: And so, as well as Pāuas ... last year was the first time we did it, but we’ve also been harvesting Kina - Sea Urchin. We caught a ton of Kina as well.

CRAWFORD: All this was freediving as well?

JENKINSON: Freediving, yes. It’s the first year that we’ve done Kina diving, but that will be an ongoing thing for us now.

CRAWFORD: Ok. From 2005 to the present, you’ve had a sequence of jobs associated with charter operations where you were dealing with the public, or you were freediving to harvest Pāua or Kina. 

JENKINSON: Yep. After working for that smaller charter operation doing the diving, kayaking, fishing trip - I was sort of in-between jobs. I worked a little bit for Luke, I worked for some other Pāua divers. I did a couple days just fill in on Codfishing boats, and things like that. Pretty much a little bit of everything, but it was all based on the water. 

CRAWFORD: How long was that in-between work?

JENKINSON: It would’ve only been probably about six months. It was after that, I started working for Sanford Fisheries, which is the Mussel and Salmon Farms in Big Glory Bay. 

CRAWFORD: This was 2006. How long did you work for the Mussel Farm?

JENKINSON: About four years, I guess. 

CRAWFORD: That was a full-time gig?

JENKINSON: That was a full-time gig. I was in charge of the Mussel harvesting side. Well, I ran the Mussel barge. My boss was [Becca Perry??], she was overseeing the whole thing. But on a day-to-day basis, I’d be on the boat with four crew, harvesting, reseeding, doing all of that.

CRAWFORD: You were geographically very focused in Big Glory Bay at the Mussel Farm, but you were also doing a shuttle between Golden Bay wharf and Big Glory? That was a near daily thing, the shuttle?

JENKINSON: Five days a week.

CRAWFORD: Long days, long hours. But you still got periods of time where you were off. Were you Pāua diving on your time off? 

JENKINSON: Occasionally throughout that, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Ok. The Mussel Farm job was four years, I think you said? Till about 2010?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Ok. What was the next natural break point, after you left the Mussel Farm? Where did you go then? 

JENKINSON: Aurora Charters. Colin and Margaret Hopkins. 

CRAWFORD: What did they ask you to do for them?

JENKINSON: Run the boat.

CRAWFORD: They wanted you to Skipper? Which vessel?

JENKINSON: The Aurora, which is the catamaran. Not the one I was on yesterday, the other one. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. What size is that vessel?

JENKINSON: Sixty foot.

CRAWFORD: In general, what were your responsibilities when you were Skippering the Aurora? 

JENKINSON: Basically, I was in charge of everything to do with the boat. Whether it was maintenance, cleaning, crewing. Everything. 

CRAWFORD: How long did you Skipper her? 

JENKINSON: I've worked for them for about five years. I mean, I still work for them essentially.

CRAWFORD: Ok. What is the distribution of the Aurora's activities in the region? Where and when, and what?

JENKINSON: Leading into Christmas, let’s say, October, November, December, January - it's more touristy type work. What I mean by that, is that we would be doing more fishing charters ...

CRAWFORD: Linefishing?

JENKINSON: Linefishing, yep. For Blue Cod. The occasional dive trip, where I’m not taking people diving, but divers charter the boat. I take them to a dive location, and then they’ll dive off the boat. We’ll pick them up, they’ll have their break, and then they’ll dive again. I don’t do a lot of that. Maybe half a dozen trips a year. As well as pelagic birdwatching trips. 

CRAWFORD: Ok, tell me about regions. First with linefishing. Are these daytrips? Where would you go? 

JENKINSON: Daytrips, yep. Again, it's weather dependent. So, we do either a half-day or a full-day fishing trip. Most of what we’re doing would be half-day stuff. We would be leaving from Halfmoon Bay. Generally, we’d be anywhere out around these islands at the front of the bay that you can see. 

CRAWFORD: The northern Titi Islands? Bench Island out to North Island?

JENKINSON: Basically, yeah. In amongst there. If it was gnarly weather, we might sneak down here to the back of the Neck, but we wouldn’t normally go much farther than East Cape. So, we're looking at this block through here.

CRAWFORD: Anything further northwest?

JENKINSON: Not on a half-day trip. The bulk of our fishing would be within that area there. Probably six or eight days a year, we might have charters that we would be picking up from Bluff. In which case, I’d leave early in the morning, I’d steam across to Bluff, pick up the group from there, and - once again, weather-dependent - if we had a reasonably good day, we would come up here to the north end of the Island, so we’d be anywhere from the Rugged Islands, through [Farm Point??], through the Bishops, Smoky Beach, Black Rock. So, if we had the weather right on a full-day trip, we'd certainly fish up here and then work our way home.

CRAWFORD: You’d fish your way home? 

JENKINSON: This is pretty good fishing up here. So. we’d spend the time here and then just steam home, normally. 

CRAWFORD: Roughly how many full-days trips a year might you get? 

JENKINSON: Probably only eight days a year up there, perhaps. Something like that. 

CRAWFORD: In comparison to, how many half-days would you be fishing in this northeast region here?

JENKINSON: Perhaps twenty. It's never a huge part of the business, the fishing part of it.

CRAWFORD: No. But we’re still talking about roughly 30 days a year?

JENKINSON: Yeah, give or take.   

CRAWFORD: Alright, that's a good description of the fishing charters. Pelagic birding - tell me about that. 

JENKINSON: Pelagic birdwatching trips. Again, we would do half-day or full-day trips. The half-day trips are the most popular. That’s a trip that would run every Tuesday. Once again, leaving from Halfmoon Bay. Depending on the time of year, we would usually sneak into some of these bays around the back of the Neck, looking for Penguins. 

CRAWFORD: On the outside?

JENKINSON: Yeah, on the seaward side. And work our way down the shore. Eventually ending up here Wreck Reef. What happens there is, and you can see it by the shape of the [lower end??]. It's a tidal convergence area, so we get opposing currents that meet there. Quite turbulent water, and an abundance of food there. 

CRAWFORD: Similar to the Otago Peninsula in that regard?

JENKINSON: Yeah. So, it makes it an excellent feeding ground for a lot of the pelagic birds. Once we get down there, we would spend an hour or so ... the birds there are just there. It’s the pick of the places. I’ve been around the Island a number of times, and that’s definitely the hotspot. 

CRAWFORD: Have you ever gone around down to Lords River?

JENKINSON: That’s for a half-day trip. After that we would return to Halfmoon Bay. So, that trip would take four or five hours, let’s say. Then we would also get probably ten days a year where we have New Zealand birding companies that will charter the boat for a full day. These are companies set up throughout the country, and they get people from all around the world. 

CRAWFORD: They're high-end birders?

JENKINSON: They are, you know. And they are doing intensive three-week birding trips in New Zealand to see 160 species of bird. 

CRAWFORD: Oh, yeah. I know the kind. [both chuckle]

JENKINSON: So, those trips are once again weather-dependent. But we would be trying to get here to the North Traps.

CRAWFORD: All the way out to the Traps? Really?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Ok. What was the draw out there?

JENKINSON: Again, just the abundance of birds.

CRAWFORD: Are there different species down there, than here at Stewart Island?

JENKINSON: Yeah, sometimes.

CRAWFORD: Maybe just the sheer numbers? That’s just such a long way to go.

JENKINSON: It is, yep. But, you get a good day - you go down there, it’s great. If you look on the chart, there is a lot of quite deep water in the area, comparatively deep water. You know up here, we are only looking at 30-odd metres. Down there, you are getting into the hundreds of metres. And then it comes right to the surface. You’ve got a strong tidal flow out there that hits these pinnacles and rocks, and it pushes, upwells everything up to the surface. In some ways, it's similar to what we’re getting here. But just that much further south, you occasionally get different birds.

CRAWFORD: Your half-day birding trips, from Halfmoon Bay working your way down to East Cape - roughly how many days a year for those?

JENKINSON: We do that every Tuesday for probably five months, I suppose.

CRAWFORD: That's going to end up being around twenty days a year?

JENKINSON: Roughly, yeah. There might be a few over and above that, but that would be about it.

CRAWFORD: For your full-day trips, were they always further down to the Traps if the weather ...

JENKINSON: If the weather would allow, we would go there. 

CRAWFORD: And that would be roughly ten times a year?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: What was your backup, if you didn’t go to the Traps. Where else would you go on a full-day trip?

JENKINSON: Spend the time here. 

CRAWFORD: Spend more time around Stewart Island?

JENKINSON: Yeah. But if it was an obviously shitty day that we were not going to the Traps, that means it's quite gnarly here as well. So, we would spend a couple of hours out here, perhaps come in somewhere for lunch, take a break, come back out when the tide will be different, and there will be different birds and different conditions. 

CRAWFORD: And just to clarify, in terms of interactions ... I mean for fishing charters, you've got bait and fish on the line. I'm guessing with the birding charters, there is no interaction, you’re not feeding the birds or anything to bring them around?

JENKINSON: Yes, we are.

CRAWFORD: Oh, ok. So, there is interaction - in terms of putting scraps over and on the water for the birds?

JENKINSON: Yep.

CRAWFORD: Which will become important in the next section's discussion. Ok. That covers your fishing charters, pelagic birding charters, and a little bit of dive support charters. Is there anything else you do with the Aurora? 

JENKINSON: Then the actual bulk of our business is transportation for hunting parties.

CRAWFORD: Are we talking 50% of the charters that you run?

JENKINSON: Probably more. On average, we do something like 65 hunting parties a year. So, that's 130 boat days. It's substantially more than anything else. That is the bread and butter for the charters.

CRAWFORD: I'm guessing that's picking up the hunters and their gear, straight to whatever their hunting destination is on the Island, drop off people and gear. Then after some time, pick them up and bring them back?

JENKINSON: Yes. Pickup at Bluff. People and all their gear. Did you come across to Stewart Island on a ferry, or did you fly?

CRAWFORD: Ferry.

JENKINSON: So, exactly the same system with cranes on both our boats. Big aluminium bins, load the gear into the bins on the wharf, put the bins onboard - as well as their small dinghies and boats and things like that. And then the dropoffs ... there's one trip a year to Port William just here, but 99% of our work would be from Halfmoon Bay south. The whole island is divided into 35 different hunting blocks. So, we're servicing just this eastern side, right down as far as Port Pegasus. Along the track here, you've got two huts down at Port Pegasus, you got the south hut just here, and you've got the north hut just here. And then there's a big gap. A lot of this through here is Māori Land, and hutless. Right the way up ... the next hut in fact is in here, Big Kuri.

CRAWFORD: That's just south of Lords River?

JENKINSON: That’s right. And then Lords River itself has three separate blocks and huts in there. There's a north block, a south one, and one that's right up in the river. Come round the corner, then you’ve got Little Kuri, there's a hut here. Then there are two huts here, and you come around and into Port Adventure, you’ve got three different huts there. Working your way up, Chew Tobacco, there's a hut here. Then there's a bit of a break again, until you come into Paterson Inlet, and then there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven - eleven different huts and blocks within Paterson Inlet as well.

CRAWFORD: Alright. That’s good, thank you. I think we get a good sense of your range over Stewart Island during those shuttles for the hunting charters. Your own experience, and then whatever knowledge the hunters might share with you. Is it relatively even distribution of activity across all of those huts? Or are there regions like Paterson Inlet that get more or less attention than perhaps over on the East Cape? 

JENKINSON: I would say that Paterson Inlet gets more attention, but for us specifically, we did not do a lot of that work. The most common and popular places for Aurora Charters would be Port Adventure, and this next one here, Tikotātahi.

CRAWFORD: So, East Cape region generally?

JENKINSON: Yeah. Pegasus as well. We're the only outfit that goes to Pegasus. But you can book the block for ten days at a time. And as a rule, people going down here to Pegasus will book both blocks, so that means there is a ten-day break between us ever going there. Then we bring a party out, and then the next day bring a party back in.

CRAWFORD: Alright, that’s excellent. You reckon those hunting charters account for the bulk of your total charter activities over the last five years. 

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Since you’ve been Skipper of the Aurora, have you still been doing much freediving or scubadiving? 

JENKINSON: More last year than the previous three or four years probably. As I said, last year was the first year we were doing any Kina diving. So, I probably spent twenty days in the water over winter last year. 

CRAWFORD: Freediving for Kina and Pāua?

JENKINSON: Yep.

CRAWFORD: Where mostly?

JENKINSON: Port Adventure - this big bay here. This next one here, Tikotātahi. A little up Lords River. And a little bit down here in Pegasus, as well.

CRAWFORD: Ok. What about your recreational scubadiving?

JENKINSON: Haven’t done any recreational scubadiving for quite some time, actually. The only dives in the last four or five years have been diving on moorings, or boat hull inspections, or changing zinc plates.

CRAWFORD: Diving on work jobs? 

JENKINSON: Work stuff, it’s not recreational stuff. And it's been very local as well - here on Halfmoon Bay or over on Horseshoe Bay.

CRAWFORD: On the inner parts of the Bay, where the boats moor?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Alright. Anything else by way of significant chunks or time on or in the water?

JENKINSON: Probably the last four or five years I would also go for one or two fishing trips with Colin and his crew as well. You know from speaking to Colin, but the area he fishes is say Broad Bay, right round the whole south end of Stewart Island. 

CRAWFORD: You were crewing with him? 

JENKINSON: Just go for a trip really. I mean his crew are all over it. I would just go and get in their way. [both chuckle]. It was just spending some time on the boat, because that coincides with winter anyway. And our charter business is pretty quiet over winter. So, that’s when I would get a bit of free time. 

2. EXPOSURE TO MĀORI/LOCAL/SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS

CRAWFORD: Overall, to what extent has Māori culture and knowledge affected your understanding of New Zealand marine world in general, not necessarily limited to White Pointers? On a simple scale of Very High, High, Medium, Low or Very Low?

JENKINSON: The Māori aspect of it is very limited. I would say Low. 

CRAWFORD: Same question, but describing the effect of Science culture and knowledge on your understanding of the marine world?

JENKINSON: Probably High. Having been involved in doing tagging. And also, when I see him around, being friends with the likes of Clinton Duffy and Kina.

CRAWFORD: But also, you run these charters ... you have to be prepared when people ask you questions about the marine environment, the plants, the animals. 

JENKINSON: Yeah, yeah. For sure.

CRAWFORD: I'm confident that you are at least in the High category for the effect of Science on your understanding.

3. WHITE POINTER DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE

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

JENKINSON: It’s quite a few years ago ...

CRAWFORD: Were you here on Stewart Island?

JENKINSON: I was definitely here on the Island.

CRAWFORD: So, you hadn't even heard about White Pointers during your earlier years up in Christchurch and the northeastern parts of South Island?

JENKINSON: No. I mean, I have an interest in the marine environment. So, it’s not like one day I just found out about this Great White Maneating Shark. I’ve always been aware of White Sharks, but I’ve never heard any first-hand stories or witness accounts or anything like that, until I had moved to Stewart Island. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. Let’s go back then and do a couple of house-keeping questions. Your very early days, especially when you were a kid on the beach during summer holidays with your family. Did the beach ever get closed down temporarily because of Sharks? 

JENKINSON: No.

CRAWFORD: There were no whistles, no Surf Life Savers getting everyone out of the water - nothing like that? 

JENKINSON: No.

CRAWFORD: Later on, when you you spent that year with intensive scubadive training ... among your instructors and the rest of the students in the course, did they ever talk about White Pointers? 

JENKINSON: Not really. I mean, it was discussed as far as how quickly you’d shit yourself and get out of the water, if you ever saw a White Shark ...

CRAWFORD: Nobody recounting any stories from years gone by, or anything like that? 

JENKINSON: No. We weren't sitting around going “Shit, there is a whole lot of Seals here. I don’t want to get in here, because there might be a Shark.” You know? That was never even discussed or concerned us. 

CRAWFORD: When you were scubadive training in that intensive year, did you dive in places where there were a lot of Seals?

JENKINSON: One of the most common dives we did, was at a place called the Seal Colony.

CRAWFORD: Ok. [both laugh] 

JENKINSON: I don’t know if you’re familiar with Kaikōura at all, but you’ve got a headland that runs out, and on any given day as a rule you can dive one side or the other. On the north side, there's the Seal colony, and on the south side a marine reserve and the racecourse and stuff. So, depending on the weather, we would pick one side or the other. The way that the Seal colony works, is that there is a flat rocky plateau - that at low water you can walk right out that rocky shelf, and drop into some quite deep cracks and carry-on diving from there.

CRAWFORD: Roughly what depth? 

JENKINSON: Not deep. I mean you can get to deep water fairly quickly, but you begin in only three or four metres of water. As you went out, you’d dive through deeper cracks that went deeper ...

CRAWFORD: Like ten to twenty metres?

JENKINSON: Maximum for that area, yeah. Your entire dive, the whole way you’ve walked out, the whole time in the water, you were within 500 meters of the carpark. It’s in sight, it's right there. 

CRAWFORD: But up at Kaikōura, you were also within approximately a kilometer of some very, very deep water.

JENKINSON: Absolutely, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: As in, going down several hundreds of metres.

JENKINSON: For sure, yeah.

CRAWFORD: My understanding is that's one of the bathymetric features that brings the Sperm Whales into that nearshore vicinity. They're deep diving for food, but then they come back up and they happen to be in sheltered waters fairly close to the coast. That's why they have the Whale watching tours there? 

JENKINSON: That’s right, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Did you ever have any interactions with Seals when you were scubadiving there?

JENKINSON: Definitely.

CRAWFORD: Like what?

JENKINSON: Lots. Just simply diving along, and without even being aware of them, they’ll just appear in front of you, and be swimming around you and investigate. They're very inquisitive. So, they would come up to us, more so than we would go to them. Not to mention, you’d never keep up with one anyways. Wouldn’t even be able to get to it.

CRAWFORD: No chance. 

JENKINSON: So, that would happen on a pretty regular basis. Have the Seals come to us, and swim around us. 

CRAWFORD: Any instances where they might playfully or otherwise, be nipping or knocking your mask off or anything like that? 

JENKINSON: Not off me. A couple of the other guys have been hit by them, but not ... hard to know really what their level of aggression was. But over summer when the females have pups, the females certainly are more aggressive. For me, my experiences were more like intimidation tactics. However, a couple of the boys have had them come up and bump into them quite hard. 

CRAWFORD: From the front or the back?

JENKINSON: From the back, yeah. As if you’re too close to their young ones, perhaps. Or something like that. 

CRAWFORD: When you were diving along that stretch, what magnitude of Seal numbers might you have seen? 

JENKINSON: That’s a hard question. There are loads of Seals right along the shore.

CRAWFORD: Are we talking dozens, or a hundred, or several hundred?

JENKINSON: You wouldn’t get a congregation of one hundred Seals in one hundred metres. But if you mean in a kilometre - there would definitely be a couple hundred, at least within that one kilometre stretch of beach. 

CRAWFORD: So, a decent number of Seals in that stretch?

JENKINSON: Yes, certainly. 

CRAWFORD: This is not just a Seal hotel - it’s also Seal pupping grounds?

JENKINSON: Definitely.

CRAWFORD: And, during the pupping season, you would have seen Seal pups around the rookeries and nearby waters?

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Did you see any indication of Sharks there? Of any kind? 

JENKINSON: No, never. 

CRAWFORD: Wow.

JENKINSON:  No Sharks at all. 

CRAWFORD: If I heard you right, you said that that particular stretch of New Zealand coastline is ... I don’t know if it's top 10 or top 5, but it's a place of relatively high Seal density within this country?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: And you were in the water there as a scubadiver, intensively training. And this was one of the major locations of your dives. Here's where it comes back to the old-timers. Did they ever take you guys aside and talk about Sharks and you scubadiving round those areas?

JENKINSON: No. The only sort of apex predator that we ever saw were the Orca. 

CRAWFORD: And what were the Orcas doing? 

JENKINSON: Hard to know. When we’d see them, they’d be in pretty close to the shore. Just patrolling, I guess would be the word to describe what they seemed to be doing. They’d sort of cruise along, and then they’d be out of sight, gone for a while. Maybe not today, but then tomorrow morning, we might see them again in a similar area. 

CRAWFORD: Ok, But no indication that those Orcas were feeding there? 

JENKINSON: Not from what we saw. 

CRAWFORD: Not directly. I'm guessing you didn’t hear of anything? 

JENKINSON: No.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Was that during Seal pupping season, when the Orcas would be around? 

JENKINSON: I couldn’t 100% tell you. 

CRAWFORD: Don’t worry about that. Did the old-timers ever talk about the migrations of the Orcas?

JENKINSON: No.

CRAWFORD: What was the next time you heard about or saw a White Pointer? 

JENKINSON: Well, you hear stories of people that I probably couldn’t specifically tell you any details about. You might be in the pub having a beer, and so-and-so saw a Shark last week.

CRAWFORD: Let’s take that set as a whole ... those would’ve been other people’s accounts at the pub or at the wharf or some place. In a very general sense, what kinds of stories were you hearing? 

JENKINSON: "Fucking White Sharks when I was out fishing today. Came right up to the boat, the bastard, and took our fish, and tangled our lines." Or something along those lines. It was often a complaint about seeing a White Shark, and having it come to the boat, and them having to move to carry on fishing. 

CRAWFORD: Was it almost always associated with boats that were fishing at the time? 

JENKINSON: I would say, yeah.

CRAWFORD: And of that fishing, was it usually linefishing? 

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: What kind of region would you have heard about these encounters between the White Pointers and fishermen? 

JENKINSON: This local area. What would be considered the local area. Out in front of the Bay, the Northern Muttonbird, or Titi, Islands

CRAWFORD: More some islands rather that others, that you were hearing about? 

JENKINSON: The back of Bench Island was one quite common place. 

CRAWFORD: The east side of Bench? 

JENKINSON: Yep. Earlier on, that would have been the most common place. I would have said if you wanted to go see a Shark, that’s where you were gonna go. 

CRAWFORD: And that would have been seven or eight years ago?

JENKINSON: Yeah. I think that's changed now, but at the time it would have been.

CRAWFORD: Where did the most frequent place change to? Over time? 

JENKINSON: Edwards and Jacky Lee.

CRAWFORD: In any of those stories. was there anything to indicate Level 4 encounters? Attitude or high intensity?

JENKINSON: Not going back that far, no. They were just Swim-Bys or some Interest in the boat. Perhaps they come for a second look around, or they rolled over and looked at the boat. 

CRAWFORD: Right. 

JENKINSON: The other thing that you almost always get when you're out here linefishing like that, you have Albatross or Mollymawks around the boat. Almost always, as soon as you stop the boat, they’ll arrive hoping to get scraps and a feed. A really good indicator has always been ... all those birds, and sometimes you’re talking 30, 40, 50 Albatross, all around the boat at once. All of a sudden, with no obvious indication, they all fly away at once. As soon as that happens, and a lot of the guys will say the same, if you look over the side you may see a shadow, you may not. But they're onto something that you have not seen yet. 

CRAWFORD: If that happens, and then you do see a White Pointer, in general how long would it be from the birds flying off and you seeing the Shark?

JENKINSON: Depending on conditions, of course. If it’s a nice, glassy, calm day - where you can see depth of water - you may see straight away. They’ll fly away. That’s then your indication to look over the side. If the conditions are poor, you may not see anything at all. 

CRAWFORD: Right. In general, when the birds take off, how long does it take for the birds to come back?

JENKINSON: A couple of minutes, probably. Which is actually quite uncommon. As I say, as soon as you stop the boat at a fishing spot, the birds will be landing immediately. So, it feels a little unusual to be out there fishing and have no birds around you. 

CRAWFORD: Right. In which case, the latency for them to return could actually be an indication of how long the Shark spent in the region. See what I mean? 

JENKINSON: I do. I guess though, you've got to also account for how hungry that bird is. [chuckles] 

CRAWFORD: Yes. I see what you mean, and that makes sense. Have you heard about or seen one of these seabirds taken by a White Pointer? 

JENKINSON: I’ve not seen it myself. But two separate occasions of stories that I have heard of, yeah. One of them was a commercial fisherman cleaning his fish, while he was in between pots. He just happened to look at the back of the boat at the right time to see an eruption of water and a Mollymawk disappear, before then coming bedraggled and broken, back to the surface. The other time, Colin would have told you, he was out linefishing with a group of blokes on the boat. Out at Flat Rock, I think it was. No one else saw, but he saw. Same thing, like an eruption of water at the back of the boat. He thought that was weird - all the birds took off, and then one Molly just came back up to the surface. 

CRAWFORD: And I think it’s an important sub-observation, that in the limited number of times that birds, Mollymawks in particular, have been taken - I think in all of the cases I've heard, the birds reappeared. Which is a pretty strong indication that ...

JENKINSON: Mistaken identity.

CRAWFORD: Mistaken identity. Or maybe the White Pointer just did it for shits and giggles. Alright. This was a characterization of stories that you've heard from others over the past seven years. Any indication that linefishing over at East Cape, or any place else around Stewart Island, was also associated with White Pointers interacting? 

JENKINSON: Not in the stories that I know of personally, no. 

CRAWFORD: Was it the case that there has been a distribution of substantial linefishing effort elsewhere round the Island?

JENKINSON: There is, but this area here would certainly be the highest.

CRAWFORD: Right. If people are fishing elsewhere, they're mostly commercial operations?

JENKINSON: Commercial more so, yeah. I mean I have also heard stories of divers, Pāua divers at Mason Head, having to get out of the water because the dinghy-boy seen a White Shark. That was about six or seven years ago, but there might be a difference from when I heard the story as to when the story actually took place. So, it’s not a diver-Shark interaction; it’s the dinghy-boy has seen the Shark. The divers haven’t seen the Shark. 

CRAWFORD: How many of those kinds of instances do you recall? 

JENKINSON: Only, a couple of those types of stories. And they would’ve been, one here ...

CRAWFORD: Mason Bay.

JENKINSON: And one up here by Waituna.

CRAWFORD: Adjacent to Codfish Island. And in those cases, from what you heard, the dinghy-boy saw the White Pointer, the Pāua divers did not. The dinghy-boy saw a fin, or saw the White Pointer circling under the surface, or saw a what? 

JENKINSON: Saw the fin. Pāua divers are diving only on flat days.

CRAWFORD: Right.

JENKINSON: Pāuas of course, are in the immediate coastal band, so they can’t dive on a rolly day. So, they would have pretty good conditions those days, the days that they are diving - especially over there. Both times, there was a silhouette in shape of Shark swimming past the dinghy. 

CRAWFORD: What Level do you think those encounters might fit into? Would they be Level 2 Swim-Bys? 

JENKINSON: I would say, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: No indication there was Circling, or anything of that Level 3 interest?

JENKINSON: No, no.

CRAWFORD: Do you recall any instances where Pāua divers had an interaction of some kind or another with a White Pointer?

JENKINSON: No.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s talk about the old-timers for a little bit. You had initial visits to Stewart Island when you were younger - you had family here, and you had time spent as a young person working in various jobs around the Island. And you had a period of time as a young man when you were on the water extensively. Prior to seven years ago, had the old-timers ever said that there were places around Stewart Island that were known to be Sharky?

JENKINSON: No, not that I really remember. I don’t really remember much talk about Sharks at all, to be honest.

CRAWFORD: When you were on and around the water, the old-timers never said, “Now Ty, you be careful. - especially up here at this time of year. You keep a close eye out when you’re in these water”?

JENKINSON: I guess there must’ve been. But at the same time ... I mean, I certainly can’t remember anything specific being talked about like that. And in those earlier years, when I was doing a little bit of Pāua diving, it might only be one day that we’d get the right weather to go out, and I’d be dinghy-boying. We’ve dived all around these Islands. From the time that you’re talking about, say five or six years ago, back earlier than that - from when I moved here.

CRAWFORD: Diving the Northern Titi Islands?

JENKINSON: Yeah. Edwards, Jacky Lee, Bench Island, Bunkers.

CRAWFORD: Right. You said it was usually sporadic work for you, but you were working with people who dove much more regularly?

JENKINSON: Yep. To be fair though, like two divers will dive around all of Edwards Island in a day. Unless you get onto a hotspot where you’re loading up. So, let’s say those two divers spend a day at Edwards, but then - its fishing so you don’t tell everyone where you’ve been. So, the next crew comes through, and they might spend a couple days there as well. 

CRAWFORD: And people… I mean sure you’d have observations, but it wasn’t the type of thing ...

JENKINSON: Part of it though, as well ... you don’t talk about that when you spend time in the water everyday diving. No one wants to talk about White Sharks.

CRAWFORD: Well, they don’t want to jinx it.

JENKINSON: Yeah, right. 

CRAWFORD: But on the other hand ... if you had, say a nephew of yours; a kid just naïve as hell. Surely you would take that kid aside, and share some advice, confidentially at least. Shared the right way. Because you want the kid to at least be very alert.

JENKINSON: Well then, I guess we go back to my very first diving experiences on Stewart Island. When I was twelve, and then when I was like fourteen or fifteen - like we talked about earlier. There was certainly no indication then from my Uncle to be aware that there might be Sharks around, you know? 

CRAWFORD: Well, that’s a pretty good indication ... To me, the absence of an explicit warning, is another strong indication that the White Pointers just were not around as much then as now.

JENKINSON: This is not from just a holiday-maker here. We're talking someone who’s lived in, fished on Stewart Island, for his entire life basically. And he made no indication to be careful here or there, or anything like that. 

CRAWFORD: Understood. Before we move on, I had a couple questions regarding your years in Paterson Inlet, specifically working at the Mussel Farm in Big Glory Bay, and also on the work shuttle between Golden Bay and Big Glory. In all of that time, did you ever see or hear of White Pointers in Paterson Inlet?

JENKINSON: No. The only Sharks that were ever talked about, when I was working up on the farms were Sevengill Sharks. They’re pretty common in a lot of areas around Stewart Island. Generally, as a rule, you’d be looking at areas with a high volume of freshwater. We're talking places like down here Sou'West Arm. There is also quite a volume of freshwater that comes out from in Big Glory Bay. No White Sharks.

CRAWFORD: And you don’t recall any stories of other people seeing White Pointers in Paterson Inlet?

JENKINSON: No. Well, I mean nearer to the end there, yes certainly I would’ve heard stories in the pub of people. Not in Paterson inlet though, but outside.

CRAWFORD: Roughly when do you reckon was the beginning of the increase in those White Pointer sightings?

JENKINSON: This is a tough one now, because there were contributing factors to the increase for me. And hearing stories of sightings and interactions and things like that. And also the fact that around about the same time, I switched jobs and started running the Aurora, and was spending more time out in the front and different areas then. 

CRAWFORD: And that’s why it’s so vital that that first part of the interview take place, right? Because it's context for the observations that come up later. I think it’s a wise thing for you to flag it. When you shifted over around 2010 to the region outside of the Bays and the Inlet, including the Northern Titi Islands, that was roughly three years after Doc started their tagging program, and two years after Peter Scott started his cage dive operations. When you started as Skipper with Aurora charters, and you started regularly taking people out to those waters, were you immediately seeing White Pointers? Or was there a lag to that?

JENKINSON: A little bit of a lag to it.

CRAWFORD: I think you indicated that you went out twice with DOC on their White Pointer tagging work. We talked about your first trip. What happened on your second trip?

JENKINSON: The second time was nowhere near as successful, as far as actually seeing Sharks. 

CRAWFORD: Where were you that time? 

JENKINSON: It was a test that they did. They wanted to know if there were Sharks anywhere else. They were trying out different areas. These Sharks here at Edward islands, they were getting the same guys coming back every day. That’s not what they wanted. They wanted to be able to tag or ID different individuals. So, they were moving around and trying different areas. The other one was right over here. It’s a place called [Joss' Passage], which is through here. This is the Breaksea Islands, that run out from here.

CRAWFORD: That’s East Cape ...

JENKINSON: South of East Cape. Port Adventure. And then this big bay here is Tikotātahi. What happens here is, a really strong tidal flow here. Their thoughts were that the Sharks like areas of strong tidal flow, because it gives them more maneuverability. They swim into the tide. They can come around on themself a lot faster, or turn a lot faster. 

CRAWFORD: Are there Seals around there as well?

JENKINSON: There are, but certainly not the same density as there is up here in the Titi Islands. We spent the day there. Never saw a Shark.

CRAWFORD: Never saw any?

JENKINSON: No.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Any other places that you heard that they had tried and either found or didn’t find White Pointers?

JENKINSON: They tried somewhere up on the north side of the Island here, but I’m not exactly sure where they were. 

CRAWFORD: Did you get the sense that they were coming to the conclusion that the northern Titi islands were the place that actually works for White Pointers?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Even though they were getting a high degree of residence ... well not necessarily 'residency' without further evidence. But repeat animals in that place?

JENKINSON: Yeah

CRAWFORD: What about DOC's tagging efforts around Bench Island, or North Island, or any of the other islands in the Titi Island chain? 

JENKINSON: Well, they still were doing the odd day out down here at Bench, but with less success than they had in the very early years. Another place they tried, I don’t know if they actually did any active tagging over at Ruapuke Island. What they certainly did do, was put in those acoustic receiver floats. Colin would have mentioned that he got the job to do those floats. To lift them, and check them. I was with Colin on the days that we did that as well. They had floats over here, and they also had receivers somewhere way up over here ...

CRAWFORD: Over on the Bluff side of Foveaux Strait?

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Over by Dog Island? 

JENKINSON: I don't remember whether they had them or not. 

CRAWFORD: In general, do you remember what the distribution of the rest of their acoustic receivers was.

JENKINSON: They had, I think 26 of them in total. Most of them were, again in this local area. 

CRAWFORD: Interspersed among the Titi Islands. 

JENKINSON: Yeah. You know, one up here, one over here ...

CRAWFORD: In Paterson Inlet? They had one in Big Glory?

JENKINSON: Yep. And of the local ones, it was the only one that hadn’t had a Shark swim past it. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Obviously, you had a privileged position because you were working with and talking with the DOC science people that were doing this largely undocumented research on White Pointers in the Stewart Island region. If you had to summarize the results of the hydroacoustic tagging, to the best of your ability, what are the most important lessons that were learned? Including any surprises? 

JENKINSON: Probably for me personally, the most interesting thing to come of it is, it goes back to something you mentioned earlier actually ... the frequency with which they were entering and exiting Paterson Inlet. 

CRAWFORD: What about that? What was the learned? 

JENKINSON: Although you think that you're in a nice, calm, sheltered Paterson Inlet. Lovely dive. White Sharks will be there as well. This is what I mean - I learned from lifting these receivers, and finding out exactly where they were. The other thing that came of interest was that, within a 24-hour period, there was a congregation of four separate individuals here at Native Island. That was very interesting to me. That there's obviously something in or around that area that is an attractant or stimulant for them. Which I found quite interesting. 

CRAWFORD: When you consider all the information that has been coming in, especially from the Science side of things like the DOC/NIWA tagging program ... what are some of the most important things that we've learned about these White Pointers? In your opinion?

JENKINSON: Perhaps it wasn't something that was new to me, but just the confirmation of the numbers that congregate, and the regularity of how the Sharks seem to work. What I mean there is like, going back to when Colin and I lifted the acoustic receivers for NIWA and DOC, and it would be the same Sharks in the same sorts of areas.

CRAWFORD: Some degree of residency?

JENKINSON: Yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Days, weeks, months, who knows. But it's not just this passing through of White Pointers. Some degree of consistency.

JENKINSON: That's right, yeah. And even talking small spaces, not just talking broader - like this whole area. So, that was quite interesting for me. 

CRAWFORD: That was from their hydroacoustic work. To what extent might you be familiar with satellite tracking tagging project?

JENKINSON: Quite limited, to be honest. The travel of some of them going as far as Tonga, and places like that. There's one individual I know for sure went up there. 

CRAWFORD: Yes. Also some going over to Australia. But then some coming back here again. You and I have talked about distribution and abundance in this White Pointer population, but when you have individuals migrating at that scale - the entire southwest Pacific ... It makes you ask what the hell is so important about this place, Stewart Island, that has them coming back over such large distances? In your opinion, what reason do you think is most likely bringing these White Pointers back?

JENKINSON: I haven't got an answer to that. It goes back to us talking before about the coast around Kaikōura that is covered in Fur Seals. So, it's not as simple as saying it's the food source. Although there is an abundance over these Islands. 

CRAWFORD: So, preying on Seals might be part, but not all of the explanation?

JENKINSON: Yeah. The only other perhaps relevant thing would be the depth, or the type of water around here. It's quite shallow water. Whether that makes it easier or harder, I don't know - for them to hunt. It is also very nutrient-rich, and clean water. But I'm sure they can go someplace else for that, too.

CRAWFORD: Have you seen anything, or heard anything, that would imply that these White Pointers are behaving socially in this region? Are they displaying any kind of behaviour where you see more than one White Pointer at a time? Or if they are interacting in a way that would lead you to believe that they're responding to each other?

JENKINSON: The only thing I've seen along those lines, is what I did touch upon which was the first day that I was on the DOC boat where we saw quite a number - fourteen Sharks. There were times where we would have two smaller Sharks, hanging around and circling the boat, in quite close proximity at the back of the boat. They would both scatter as soon as a larger Shark came through.

CRAWFORD: Right. To an ecologist, that's fairly strong incidental evidence of a size-based relationship, or even possible a full-on social dominance hierarchy among the individuals. But if you throw a bunch of freshwater cichlids into an aquarium, the very first thing they do is buid a dominance hierarchy - usually size-based.

JENKINSON: Yeah, ok.

CRAWFORD: Have you seen or heard anything that would suggest any kind of gender thing going on, with males and females? Have you heard anything in that regard?

JENKINSON: Only that the females are much larger. I probably made it up in my own mind, relating to that story that I've just told. That the females would be the dominant ones, because they're bigger. But I haven't heard any stories specific for that, no.

CRAWFORD: Anything regarding reproduction, or the possibility of it?

JENKINSON: No. The question has been asked a lot. Whether or not this is the breeding area. Whether that's why they're coming back here. 

CRAWFORD: That question's been asked among Local people?

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Has anybody put forward what you think any strong ideas - for or against? Or is it up in the air?

JENKINSON: No, it's up in the air. And that would go not only for Locals, and family, and friends - that sort of thing. But also speaking with the likes of Clinton Duffy. I know in the most recent years of their tagging project, they were specifically trying to GPS-tag large, breeding age, females. For that reason. But, I don't know what sort of success they had.

CRAWFORD: When's the last time you remember seeing Clinton and crew down here, working on the White Pointers?

JENKINSON: I'm not sure that they were here last year. It might have been the year before. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever see any of the satellite tags go on the White Pointers? 

JENKINSON: No. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever go to any of the community presentations, where they might have presented their results? Anything like that?

JENKINSON: No. They had Stewart Island News, with a photograph of the tracks of some of them. Things like that.

CRAWFORD: The number of incidences across those four Levels, 1-Observation only, 2-Swim-By, 3-Interest and 4-Intensity or Attack. You talked before about the idea that the frequency and levels have gone up over the past several years. There could be a number of contributing factors, and they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. One possibility is that there could be an increase in the total abundance of White Pointers in the population. More Sharks, therefore there are more Shark sightings. Another possibility is that there is some type of effect on them - from whatever cause - that increases their interactivity with Humans. Could have been exactly the same number of White Pointers, but they are more inclined to interact with Humans. Yet another possible explanation is that there are more people, more pairs of eyes out there. Let's deal in reverse order. Is it your sense that there is a greater number of people out on the water - and now I'm talking specifically about Bench to North Island, the Northern Titi Island region? Has the boat traffic in that region increased substantially over the past decade?

JENKINSON: I think it has, yeah. Definitely has, in fact. Not hugely though. It's not like it has quadrupled, not even doubled. It's probably half as much again, what it used to be.

CRAWFORD: What kind of boating contributes to that increase?

JENKINSON: Recreational boating. Seven-metre aluminium runabout-type boats. 

CRAWFORD: Would these be the type of boats that would be coming out of Bluff? Or coming out from Stewart Island? 

JENKINSON: A bit of both, yeah. There's probably more recreational boats on the Island now, than there were. But also, boats coming from Bluff.

CRAWFORD: Daytrippers?

JENKINSON: Yeah, yeah. Or coming and staying in the Bay, or staying in the Inlet for a couple of days.  

CRAWFORD: Are these recreational boats out there for a feed of fish? Or pelagic birdwatching? Or do you think many are out there specifically for an eco-moment with a White Pointer? Or maybe some other reason? What do you think is attracting the recreational boaters to the Titi Islands?

JENKINSON: Fishing would be probably the main reason. But I definitely think there would be a number of people that, not perhaps as the primary reason for going out there ... they may go out for a feed of fish, but they would be more inclined, I believe, to come around Edwards and Jacky Lee with a chance of seeing a Shark. 

CRAWFORD: This is something that you and a few others have a unique perspective on, because you see tourists coming into the region. You take them out there to do various types of things. Have you noticed an increase of inquiries about White Pointers specifically?

JENKINSON: Definitely.

CRAWFORD: So, that has increased? Peoples' awareness?

JENKINSON: Without a doubt. And going back to what you saying before, it's two out of three of those things. Public awareness is certainly greater. On a daily basis on the charter boat I would get asked ... firstly, my opinion of the White Sharks and the cage diving; and secondly, all of these questions - how often do you see them? where are they? all of that. That happens every day now. I never got asked questions about White Sharks five years ago.

CRAWFORD: When did that really pick up?

JENKINSON: Probably in the last two years, it has been almost every day.   

CRAWFORD: Do you figure that increase in awareness is associated with the controversy about cage diving, and the associated news coverage?

JENKINSON: Definitely. Yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Is that mostly from Kiwis? 

JENKINSON: And foreigners as well. On birdwatching trips, we only really have foreigners. We don;t have many New Zealanders come on those trips. 

CRAWFORD: How the hell do the foreigners know about the cage diving controversy?

JENKINSON: Having been in the country, I guess. Spoken to other people on the Island, and different things. Almost every single Stewart Islander will have an opinion on this, and it is a topic of conversation that arises quite frequently.

CRAWFORD: Oh, I've become pretty well aware of that now. That's for sure.

JENKINSON: Their accommodation providers ... I mean, the Bluff ferry crew were making a point of mentioning Shark cage diving, and how this is where they do it out here. And there's the people you can travel with.

CRAWFORD: Yeah. I don't remember if it was Colin, but somebody said the ferry crew still does that. But I always come in on the 8am or 5pm ferry ....

JENKINSON: And so do I, normally - the morning ones as well. So, I don't normally travel with the Bluff crew. 

CRAWFORD: So, I haven't heard it myself. I thought maybe it was done, and no longer. But evidently, maybe it still is happening.

JENKINSON: I think it's actually just been addressed in their company. 

CRAWFORD: The thing I'm really trying to get to here ultimately ... some people have talked about the terms and conditions of the DOC permits for cage dive operations, and specifically about non-cage dive people going out to Edwards and interacting with the White Pointers. The example that you gave of the yacht that you thought was actually trying to raise the White Pointers to see them at Edwards. The idea of regular people going over there, throwing fish or fish frames int the water to increase the probability that they will have an eco-moment with a White Pointer?

JENKINSON: Definitely.

CRAWFORD: Is it something you have seen? Or heard about from people who you trust, who have seen it?

JENKINSON: Both. Some of our hunting parties with larger boats have done that - been out there fishing, and put themselves as close as they can. Been fishing right there. Maybe dropping fish frames.

CRAWFORD: Right. Because, as you've observed, even just having a fish on a line can be more than enough to bring them in. 

JENKINSON: It's enough of an attractant, for sure. But also, I think that probably extends a little bit as well some of the local charter operators. One in particular, who I know goes out there and does a similar sort of thing. We're going fishing, but if you want to see a Shark - we'll go there to do it.

CRAWFORD: At present, there is absolutely nothing by way of legislation or permit that would be violated by doing so?

JENKINSON: No. 

CRAWFORD: Some of the concerns that I've heard, some people say there could be a lot more of that in the future. 

JENKINSON: I would say, without a doubt.

CRAWFORD: Daytrippers, or perhaps fishing charters, going out to Edwards Island and feeding the White Pointers - despite the idea that it is the act of feeding them that is most likely to create 'problem animals' that threaten Humans elsewhere.

JENKINSON: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Do you know if there's been any kind of DOC work done, other than the hydroacoustic tags, to assess the residency of individual White Pointers?

JENKINSON: Well, that's something DOC did as well, is the ID tagging. There's a little monofilament tag that goes into it - it has three different colours on it. It's close to directly behind the dorsal fin. Problem with it though, is that over time that [beam??] starts to go weedy as well - and then you can't make out what colours it is, even if you got a good enough look. 

CRAWFORD: Did you ever hear any of the results of what happened as a result of that type of ID tagging?

JENKINSON: As far as numbers go, you mean?

CRAWFORD: Or degree of residency in a place by particular individual White Pointers? How many individuals are there, long-term, medium-term, short-term?

JENKINSON: From Clinton Duffy directly, he seemed to think that there was perhaps something in the vicinity of around two hundred individuals in this area.

CRAWFORD: In the Titi Islands area?

JENKINSON: That's why, near the end there, they were trying to go to different areas to find other ones, because they would get the same Sharks - day in, day out, at the same sorts of spots.

CRAWFORD: Do you know anything about photo-identification work that might have been done by DOC?

JENKINSON: Not a lot, no. I've seen the setup that Kina has to do the underwater stuff. 

CRAWFORD: Have you heard any of the results from that?

JENKINSON: No.

4. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - DIRECT EXPERIENCES

JENKINSON: My first personal experiences of seeing White Sharks going out on the Department of Conservation boat with Clinton Duffy and those guys, when they were doing the tagging. 

CRAWFORD: The first year that they were doing that DOC tagging? 

JENKINSON: The second year, I think it was. I missed that first year. And I just went out for one day with them. The first time that I went with them, we came to Edwards island, the east side. It was the last day of two weeks, pretty intensive berleying and tagging that they’d done.

CRAWFORD: Do you remember what kind of tags were they using at the time?

JENKINSON: I think they had already done all the acoustic tags ...

CRAWFORD: Had they started into the GPS satellite tags? 

JENKINSON: Perhaps they might have done it earlier on, I am not certain, to be honest. 

CRAWFORD: Well, put it this way - were they harpooning, stabbing the White Pointers to attach tags? Or were they drilling through their dorsal fins to attach larger plates?

JENKINSON: They were definitely not drilling plates. Not on the day I was there. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let’s presume it was hydroacoustic tagging with harpoons. 

JENKINSON: Yeah, which I believe gives them a DNA sample at the same time. 

CRAWFORD: You said the DOC berleying was pretty intensive. Can you describe that?

JENKINSON: Yeah. Their minced-up Tuna, thinned down a little with some saltwater.

CRAWFORD: Were they mincing on board?

JENKINSON: No. They had previously minced ,and frozen it down into blocks. Then into a big tub as a defroster. Then they just pailing it over the side little bits at a time, scooping. They were also filming while they were doing this. So, if a Shark did come to the boat, the berleying would immediately stop, because it’s clouding the camera and things like that. So, they’d stop berleying if a Shark came. And then they’d be using a throw bait. 

CRAWFORD: In order to bring the White Pointer closer to the boat?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Was that filming in terms of photo identification, or filming in terms of Kina getting footage for tv shows?

JENKINSON: Well, I mean Kina said that all of the filming he was doing was for ID of the Sharks. Take what you like from that. [chuckles]

JENKINSON: Right. Getting back to the story ... that day we went up, what they wanted to do was to find out whether or not the Sharks were coming to the boat because they were familiar with the boat, or whether the Sharks were there already, or what was going on. So, what we did is left at 5 am, in the dark, went out, dropped the anchor, soon as the anchor was set, and we shut the boat off - they immediately hung over the side an acoustic receiver, and without putting anything in the water ...

CRAWFORD: No berley yet? 

JENKINSON: No berley. And they already picked up the acoustics of four separate Sharks that were within a fairly tight area. 

CRAWFORD: Wow. What was the range on their hydroacoustic receiver, do you figure? 

JENKINSON: 250 metres, perhaps it was. Something like that. And that was within minutes of shutting the boat down.

CRAWFORD: So, the animals were indeed right there. 

JENKINSON: Whether they had come because they heard the boat? Or whether they were already there and we’ve gone to them? That’s an unknown. Yeah, the interesting thing was they were there. Four separate Sharks. For the day there was fourteen different Sharks or something - that came to the boat. But there were four separate individuals straight away.

CRAWFORD: I think that is an extremely important observation about the DOC tagging program. I've never heard anybody describe that incident before. Either DOC simply lucked into a naturally very high aggregation of White Pointers, or their own previous tagging efforts at that location had actually created an artificial aggregation in which the White Pointers had associated the smell of food with either the place, or the presence of a boat arriving at the surface there, or maybe even the arrival of their specific DOC boat arriving there. Either way, that is critical insight into the effects of DOC tagging - and cage dive operations - on the White Pointers. When DOC anchored at the location that day, did they stay at that one anchor position for the entire day?

JENKINSON: We did. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. What other types of things did you see when you were out that day with DOC? 

JENKINSON: As I said, berleying the water, and that was fairly continuous throughout the day, really. I would’ve said that there would’ve been no longer than 15 or 20 minutes where we couldn’t physically see a Shark.

CRAWFORD: Pretty much continuous White Pointers?

JENKINSON: Yeah, it was. At times we might have three Sharks within sight, and it was interesting then to see the interaction of the Sharks among themselves. You might have two smaller Sharks which would be inquiring about the throw baits, and obviously there because of the berley trail. But we’d see those two Sharks skitter, and then a larger Shark would come through as well. 

CRAWFORD: Do you remember what time of year this was? Roughly?

JENKINSON: I think they were always doing that at the same time of year. I reckon that must be ... March. 

CRAWFORD: So, later in the season.

JENKINSON: I think so, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Those smaller White Pointers, skittering, and then another larger animal coming in - any indication of males vs females?

JENKINSON: The boys knew, and they would say. In fact, most of them, they had already tagged. There was only maybe one new Shark for the day. Or perhaps two new Sharks. They certainly knew the Sharks, and would be able to sex them. But I don't recall.

CRAWFORD: They knew them by tag number or morphology or what? 

JENKINSON: Yeah, by fin markings.

CRAWFORD: They referred to them by ID code number or by name?

JENKINSON: "This is Ella" and "This is Grim" and "This is so-and-so."

CRAWFORD: Oh. DOC science researchers had nicknames for these White Pointers?

JENKINSON: Yeah. For most of them, yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. So, these White Pointers were attracted in close to the DOC boat, they get harpoon tagged - but it’s not the type of tagging where the animal is hooked by the mouth and then wrangled in to the side of the boat for drilling the tag plates through its dorsal fin?

JENKINSON: No. 

CRAWFORD: Was there any indication that there was Level 4 attitude or aggression or anything like that, by the White Pointers in response to the DOC tagging operation?

JENKINSON: Definitely, yeah. Because that’s what they’re doing. Luring them in to get them as close as they can. So, if they’re throwing the throw bait out, that guy’s job who’s holding on to the rope, is to get that Shark at the surface, and get it as close to the boat as is physically possible.

CRAWFORD: So, they can harpoon it with a tag?

JENKINSON: So, they can harpoon it. What goes with that is the DOC boat ... and probably still to this day, it has trim tabs on the back. You know what I mean?

CRAWFORD: Yeah. Adjustable metal flaps on the stern. So, when the boat comes up on plane, they can level it out nice and even.

JENKINSON: Well, that would be an annual thing - the hydraulic rams would need to be repaired, because the Sharks would come up, and thrash about on those tabs. So, you’re talking about an aluminium plate, let’s say this wide. One on either side of the hull. And they have two hydraulic rams ...

CRAWFORD: Just for the transcript, these trim tabs were approximately 20 inches wide? 

JENKINSON: Yeah, maybe 15 inches, 40 centimetres - something like that.

CRAWFORD: And these White Pointers would come up, and bite the tabs, or the hydraulic rams? 

JENKINSON: The actual tab itself. But in that process ... we're talking quite a large Shark, too. So, they would destroy it, rip the hydraulic rams apart, and things like that.

CRAWFORD: So, this was no longer an intermediate encounter with these White Pointers. This was Level 4 behaviour. High intensity, if not provoked frenzy, perhaps even outright frustration or aggression to the boat?

JENKINSON: For sure, yeah. I’d Certainly categorize that as Level 4. 

CRAWFORD: And of the White Pointers that you saw in proximity to the DOC boat that day, roughly what proportion were in that Level 4 category?

JENKINSON: Not all of them. In fact, a lower percentage than not.

CRAWFORD: You said roughly fifteen White Pointers total for that day? 

JENKINSON: Fourteen, I think it was, for the day, So, if we say fourteen, probably two of them were very aggressive. Yeah, let’s say two Level 4s, then probably eight to ten Level 3s. And then just a couple like Swim-Bys - perhaps we wouldn’t even see some.

CRAWFORD: Yeah, and that’s the point. You don’t know what animals were checking you out but not seen by you?

JENKINSON: That’s right. And perhaps that’s exactly that. There might have been one that Kina only saw on the video, but we never even saw.

CRAWFORD: Right. This DOC tagging day, it was you with Malcom, Clinton and Kina? 

JENKINSON: Malcom wasn’t there. It was another guy. I forget his name ... Scott something? Yeah, I can’t remember. 

CRAWFORD: Reasonably calm surface conditions?

JENKINSON: Yep.

CRAWFORD: During the second or third year of DOC tagging these White Pointers, which I think means the first or second year of the cage dive operations because ...

JENKINSON: I don’t actually remember the cage dive operations being around then, to be honest. For me personally, I question the seven or eight years that Peter Scott’s done it. I don’t know. I can never remember it that long ago. 

CRAWFORD: Ok, fair enough. But it’s also possible that the first years of cage diving wer at such a low levels that it wasn’t on your radar.

JENKINSON: Yeah, that could be the case.

CRAWFORD: What I’m trying to get to is that, this is a very important observation - because it was during the DOC tagging years. Because DOC was tagging the White Pointers before the cage dive operations started up, or before they were really going strong.

JENKINSON: Definitely.

CRAWFORD: Last question in this regard ... were there any other notable types of White Pointer behaviour that you noticed that day on the DOC tagging boat? Other than some of them biting the trim tabs?

JENKINSON: Yeah, definitely. Probably the most memorable part of the whole day for me, was that the same Shark would come to the boat. It was one specific Shark, so I wouldn’t say this was a general observation. But this one Shark would ... we saw, and it did it twice, where it would come to the back of the boat, be lured in by the throw bait. But at the last minute, they’d drag the throw bait out of the water, so the Shark would miss it. And it would go around, come back for another look, same thing would happen. So, it was never getting the bait. So, that's two times in a row it's come up, and tried but missed the bait. The next time we saw exactly the same Shark, it was coming from under the boat. No one saw it coming. Hard and fast. Boom! Got the bait.

CRAWFORD: As in ... hard and fast, coming out of the water?

JENKINSON: Yeah, not like a huge ...

CRAWFORD: It wasn’t breaching?

JENKINSON: No, no. But breaking the surface enough to get the throw bait.

CRAWFORD: It came from underneath this time - and got the bait after all? 

JENKINSON: Yeah. "Fool me once, fool me twice. Fuck you. I’m getting it the third time." You know? Very evident for me. Stuck in my mind. Jesus, these things are not just opportunistic. He’s worked that out. 

CRAWFORD: Yes, well it’s not just that they are not opportunistic. They’re not silly either. They're actually very smart animals. And you reckon it was the very same animal?

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Another very good observation. Anything else in terms of attitude or aggression? Any bumping of the boat? Did they ever go after the motor? 

JENKINSON: Not that I saw. I mean it’s an in-built engine, so we can’t see anything.

CRAWFORD: Right. But you didn’t feel anything? No body slams against the boat?

JENKINSON: No, just the trim tab thing. That was pretty aggressive, though. You know that’s happening. You can hear that. 

CRAWFORD: Did you get the sense that this was kind of routine for the DOC scientists? Based on the behaviour of the other guys on the DOC boat that day? Or was this kind of an exceptional day for them? 

JENKINSON: No. Pretty routine. Exceptional perhaps in the numbers - more than they had seen any other day. 

CRAWFORD: Let's focus on the time you spent as Skipper of the Aurora charters. How many White Pointers do you figure you saw during those past five years?

JENKINSON: Maybe fifteen different times that we've had them. Between fifteen and twenty.

CRAWFORD: Were all of those instances out in the Islands, between Bench and North Island?

JENKINSON: Except the most recent one, they were all out around the Islands here. The most recent one, it was only a couple of weeks ago. Beautiful, glassy calm morning. Perfectly still on the water. As we headed out, I hadn't even made it out of Halfmoon Bay, and travelled past one that had probably three or four inches of its dorsal fin out of the water. It just slipped below the water, and carried on at its normal speed.

CRAWFORD: Halfmoon Bay? How far out?

JENKINSON: As you go out Halfmoon Bay, just past this point here, I was heading for Bluff. The Shark was 15 metres away. 

CRAWFORD: Just past Sarah Cove.

JENKINSON: Yeah, the point between Sarah Cove and Deadman's - more or less.

CRAWFORD: You were heading out, the White Pointer was heading in?

JENKINSON: Yep.

CRAWFORD: When you saw this White Pointer ... Well, you've seen enough of them by now. Approximately how big was that one?

JENKINSON: Not huge, I wouldn't have thought. Three or three-and-a-half metres, maybe. It was just cruising. First time I've ever seen it in that scenario, when we were travelling and saw one.

CRAWFORD: So, a Level 1 - simple observation.

JENKINSON: Certainly, yeah. Tip of the dorsal just above the surface. I thought it was a Seal fin, for a start. But then noticed it casually slipping below the surface. But it was such a calm, clear day that I could see the silhouette of the Shark underwater as well. 

CRAWFORD: And three weeks ago, puts it roughly at Christmas?

JENKINSON: Yep. In between Christmas and New Year, actually.

CRAWFORD: That White Pointer is in a different category that the other fifteen to twenty you’ve seen out among the Titi Islands. For those animals, were they mostly Level 1 Observation, Level 2 Swim-By or Level 3 Interest like circling? What percent were Level 1 Observation?

JENKINSON: Ten percent, I guess. One or two only. The majority were Swim-Bys. Like 90% of the time, were stopped - we're fishing, or we're birdwatching. And that's when we've had Sharks, the Level 2. They come to us. 

CRAWFORD: Right. And thank you for splitting between fishing and birdwatching. Would you be underway when you are birdwatching?

JENKINSON: Depends. Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes we're stationary.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Let's focus first on encounters when your charter was fishing. Would that have accounted for half of those fifteen to twenty sightings?

JENKINSON: No. It was fourteen out of fifteen. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. In every case, you had fishing lines in the water?

JENKINSON: No. But it was probably 95% of those cases. There would be one or two occasions when we had a Shark before we even started fishing after I've stopped the boat. As I'm explaining to everyone how to fish, how to get going, how to use the rods and reels, how to use the handlines if they want to use them. 

CRAWFORD: Right. For the times when you hadn't yet started fishing, do you remember the locations?

JENKINSON: Yeah. It was a reef through here ... between Jacky Lee and Herekopare. And the other time was over here at Bench, on the east side.

CRAWFORD: So those two animals ... you hadn't done anything other than arrive? Prior to any tackle or bait going in the water, prior to any fish getting caught?

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: In those cases, how did the White Pointers behave?

JENKINSON: Probably Level 2. Swim-By. No aggression. Checking us out. Aware of the boat. 

CRAWFORD: Did they Circle?

JENKINSON: Often in my experience, what we've seen them do is come up for a look at the boat, then they'll disappear for a little while. They don't have to go much deeper, and we lose them anyway. And then we'll see them again. So, there sort of in the area still, but we're not really seeing them.

CRAWFORD: Right. In the other instances, you had fishing going on. Gear in the water, people retrieving fish.

JENKINSON: Yep.

CRAWFORD: What was the general response, behaviour of the White Pointers in those cases?

JENKINSON: One or two times, we've had them where a person might be winding a fish up, getting half-way up, and then their line will go really tight. Snap off. And then almost immediately, within minutes, we'll see a Shark come up once, I'll have to tell everyone "Lines up. Get your lines out of the water."

CRAWFORD: Though you didn't actually see the White Pointer take the fish ...

JENKINSON: No. The assumption is it was that Shark. 

CRAWFORD: Right. Was there anything more elevated that fish being taken off a line, or the White Pointers coming up to check out the boat?

JENKINSON: No.

CRAWFORD: Ok. That's your direct experience. Is that consistent with what you've heard from other people who have been out on the water in this region? Or have they had different experiences with the White Pointers?

JENKINSON: I think that's fairly consistent, to be honest. I don't really know, but that would be my opinion. 

5. WHITE POINTER ENCOUNTERS - EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS

CRAWFORD: Ok. All of that was triggered from our discussion of the first time you saw or heard of White Pointers. You knew about them from your early days, but nothing specific through all of your early scubadiving days. I think you said they didn't really show up directly on your radar until you came here to Stewart Island?

JENKINSON: That's right. Would be seven or eight years ago, perhaps.

CRAWFORD: So, 2007 - 2008?

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: What were you doing at that time?

JENKINSON: I was working for Sanfords, on the Mussel Farm. I didn’t have the interaction with them but ...

CRAWFORD: You heard about a White Pointer?

JENKINSON: My very good friends were out, Dead Man’s Bay. They’d been out fishing in a little five-metre aluminium dinghy.

CRAWFORD: Linefishing?

JENKINSON: Yeah. They’d been actually fishing at Fish Rock. Came into Dead Man's to clean their fish. And they had what they described as a very big White Shark come to the boat, and swim around them. 

CRAWFORD: Do you remember roughly what time of year this was? 

JENKINSON: No, I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. Is linefishing something you’re more likely to do here during the summer, than during winter? 

JENKINSON: No. 

CRAWFORD: So, could’ve been anytime of the year really?

JENKINSON: Stewart Island doesn’t really have seasons. When you get a sunny day, you go and do it man [both chuckle] 

CRAWFORD: And if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes?

JENKINSON: Yeah, for sure. The only thing I can say is an assumption, which is that we know now the Sharks are generally here over summer.

CRAWFORD: So that's kind of back-casting from current knowledge?

JENKINSON: It is. 

CRAWFORD: You heard this directly from them. They were in a dinghy, they had been out at Fish Rock, they came back into Deadman's Bay. Were they actually in the process of cleaning their fish? 

JENKINSON: They’d finished, and just tidying the boat up before coming back into the Bay. 

CRAWFORD: What do you remember them saying about what happened? 

JENKINSON: That it was a very big White Shark ...

CRAWFORD: Relative to their boat?

JENKINSON: Yeah. The description of it was. that it swam under the boat, and over both sides they could see pectoral fins. So, as wide as the boat. If you sat two people side by side, like we're talking, the dinghy would be here to there wide. Call it two meters roughly. Not a huge boat, but still that’s pretty intimidating, And pretty low slung. 

CRAWFORD: And the pectorals were wider than the width of the boat?

JENKINSON: Yeah, that’s right. They said that it cruised around the dinghy for a little while. 

CRAWFORD: It went under first? Do you remember anything about that? 

JENKINSON: No, I don’t know the pattern or the route. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. [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 your description of your mates' encounter with that White Pointer over at Deadman's, especially the circling behaviour, it seems that was a Level 3.

JENKINSON: Yeah. It showed more interest than just passing by obviously. The fact that it then hung around them for, not just seconds, but actually for minutes around the boat.

CRAWFORD: Yes. Was there any indication that the White Pointer was feeding on the Codframes they were dumping there?

JENKINSON: I really don’t know the answer to that. 

CRAWFORD: Ok. Have you heard any other reliable stories about White Pointers in the region?

JENKINSON: I've heard stories of a couple of boats, them being far more aggressive. One, which you may know, one of Colin Hopkins' dinghies, 4-metre aluminium dinghy. I think there was a bloke and two kids or three kids or something, out at Deadman's once again. I'm not sure what they were doing there, I think they were going out fishing. They had one circle the boat, and then come up and actually bite the bow of the boat. Very visible teeth marks scratched into the boat. To which they started their outboard, and came straight back into Halfmoon Bay. 

CRAWFORD: Yes, that story has come up.

JENKINSON: The other story that I know of, and again it's probably one you're aware of, it was Johnny Leask - who's not around anymore. Fluff, or Gordon Leask, is his Son. His boat out here is called the Rawhiti. He was somewhere round here by the back of the Neck, and gas a White Shark come up ... it's a reasonably big boat, it would be 30-foot, I suppose. Old wooden boat. Shark came up and bit the stem of the boat, where the bow comes down. Left teeth in the wooden hull. 

CRAWFORD: Once again, you've got biting - which clearly puts the encounter into Level 4. Although, depending on the circumstances, you could have a White Pointer that was Level 3 Interested and simply mouthing. But in this case, there was some intensity, some attitude? Did you hear anything about that?

JENKINSON: I don't know. 

CRAWFORD: Of all the instances that you've heard about in this region, other than the ones you've described, have there been any strong Level 4s? Any very intense encounters with White Pointers? Any attacks on Humans?

JENKINSON: Well, another hearsay story that I know of was last season there was a visiting boat down here from Wellington. Quite a fancy, sort of pleasure yacht thing. 

CRAWFORD: Sailboat?

JENKINSON: No, it wasn't. It was a motorboat, but it was a sort of ... I don't know what you'd call it. It had like a bridge deck, and quite a fancy [gem palace??] we'd call it. Anyway, they were here - three blokes on it for a week or ten days or something. The day we were out here fishing off the end of Jacky Lee, we saw them anchored up over here at Edwards for most of the day. And in my opinion, they were well aware of what they were doing. They were there to try and see Sharks. Given that it's there, and where they were anchored they were certainly not fishing.

CRAWFORD: What time of year was this?

JENKINSON: Early last year. Let's say February, or something like that. Shark season - what you think of as Shark season. 

CRAWFORD: But the cage dive operations were not set up on that side of Edwards on that day?

JENKINSON: Yeah. They may have been on the other side. I didn't see them. So, these guys were anchored here. We did our fishing, came back in. And later on, in the pub that evening I met these guys. They said they had their small inflatable dinghy bitten by a Shark. 

CRAWFORD: They launched an inflatable dinghy ...

JENKINSON: They had, tied off the back of the boat, an inflatable dinghy - the whole time. I don't really know what their angle on it was, but they adamantly said they hadn't been trying to see Sharks. And that this Shark had just come up and done that. I'm not sure exactly whether it was as they started coming in - they might have left the dinghy tied off. If not that, then it was as they pulled the dinghy onto the back. One way or the other. There was movement of the dinghy, and that's when the Shark came up and done that. 

CRAWFORD: Is it typical for a boat like that to tow its dinghy?

JENKINSON: Yes and no. A bit of both, I guess. It was a beautiful calm day as well. 

CRAWFORD: But it seems an inflatable dinghy attracted the attention of a White Pointer. As far as you know, were they doing anything else? Were they fishing? 

JENKINSON: In my opinion, they definitely weren't fishing. I reckon they were there trying to see Sharks. Baiting, and perhaps putting some in the water. They adamantly said they weren't doing that. But in my opinion, where they were anchored, there are no fish there. So, they're no fishing. 

CRAWFORD: Right. The upshot of it is, a White Pointer had a chomp on their dinghy. Deflated it?

JENKINSON: I assume so, yeah. I didn't see it.

CRAWFORD: What was the attitude, or their demeanor, when you saw them down at the pub?

JENKINSON: I just thought they were bullshitting, and I didn't really have any sympathy for them. Although the way they were selling the story was that ... it had just happened. At the end of the day, what they were saying would support my opinion if it. That we shouldn't be doing it. Because this is what happens. But, I just thought they were bullshitting me. I thought it served them right for doing it. [chuckles]

CRAWFORD: And from the White Pointer's perspective, that could all simply be well within the Level 3 Interest. You see something floating, you come up and have a look ... "I think I can get my mouth around that. Have a feel." Did they say anything that the White Pointer really clamped down hard? Did they see it happen?

 JENKINSON: They said they saw it, yeah. But I couldn't say. I thought they were bullshitting, so I didn't pay a great deal of attention.

CRAWFORD: Right. 

6. EFFECTS OF CAGE TOUR DIVE OPERATIONS

CRAWFORD: Have you seen the cage dive operations up and running?

JENKINSON: Yes. Not onboard their boat - from my boat.

CRAWFORD: Under those circumstances, are we talking about maybe 200 metres away? That type of thing?

JENKINSON: More. 500 metres away.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Now, just to kind of nail down the specifics as they currently exist under the DOC permit. Shark cage dive boat steams over to Edwards Island, they anchor on station out of the wind if there is any. What do you expect is the next step in the sequence of operation?

JENKINSON: Cage goes in the water, I assume. They get some berley in the water. Wait for Sharks. Perhaps in between there, you've got everyone get into their wetsuits, for when the Sharks do come. Sharks arrive. I'm sure at some stage, they must have some kind of safety briefing, as to what they're doing. In the water ...

CRAWFORD: In the submerged cage. The punters have their moment, take their pictures, do whatever. Also under the permit conditions, they're allowed to have a throw bait - maybe a Tune head on a line - to bring the White Pointers in along the cage. There's a limit on what happens, if they accidentally lose that throw bait to a White Pointer. The number of times it can be replaced. 

JENKINSON: Yeah, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Now that we've got that kind of common understanding of the process ... do you think that cage dive operations have an important and lasting effect on the White Pointers?

JENKINSON: In my opinion, they certainly do. 

CRAWFORD: Why do you say that?

JENKINSON: Because I base it on the regularity that we've - not just myself, but a number of people now - see Sharks. I believe that has to do with the fact that the Sharks are being trained to be more comfortable around boats. Not only more comfortable, but they're also being taught that often there is a feed involved. They're not always necessarily getting a feed out of it, but they can certainly sometimes get a feed, if they get the throw bait. So, by training the Sharks to do that, I reckon that's happening now with a number of other boats as well. Not just the operator's boats. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. I'm going to take you through a series of questions that build in complexity. First, do you think that White Pointers exposed to cage dive operations will associate the smell of food - in this case berley, with the place - in this case, Edwards Island? Another way of asking this question is ... do you think there are more White Pointers around Edwards Island now, because of the cage dive operations?

JENKINSON: Yes. Yes, I do. Again, it's because of the regularity that Sharks are seen in the immediate area. 

CRAWFORD: There could be other factors that contribute to that observation, but that the cage dive operations act to either attract White Pointers to that place, or perhaps keep them there longer that otherwise would have been the case?

JENKINSON: That's where the gray area in my mind would be. Whether or not there are only two Sharks that keep going round and round and round in circles - and they're seen regularly. Or whether there's ten Sharks. It’s kind of hard to gauge that, isn't it? If I see a Shark, I wouldn't always know if it was the same Shark I saw yesterday. 

CRAWFORD: That's an important issue. Let's add one degree of complexity. We've got White Pointer association between food smell and place, as one possibility. Let's consider now the possibility that the White Pointer could associate the smell of food with the presence of a boat. Any old boat up at the surface, not a specific boat in particular. Boats in general. Do you think that White Pointers exposed to cage dive operations to investigate, at whatever Level, a boat at some other place and time?

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Why do you say that?

JENKINSON: Just the recognition of the sound of a boat. "If I hear the sound of a boat, it means there's some sort of food going in the water. If I hear a boat, it's close, I'll go and have look and see."

CRAWFORD: It's possible. Do you think that it is actually happening? Is it likely?

JENKINSON: I do think it's happening. I base that on the couple of times where we've had Sharks come to our boat - before we've put anything in the water.

CRAWFORD: Right. Let's add one more level of complexity, which is - your specific boat. It could be something to do with the hull, or the engine, the prop, the electromagnetics, the sound, whatever. Do you think that White pointers that have been exposed to cage diver operations, that it's likely the would associate the smell of food with the signature of an individual boat?

JENKINSON: Yep. 

CRAWFORD: Why do you say that?

JENKINSON: I would say that a lot of those Sharks they see at the Shark boats, are familiar with the exact sound of that boat. More so from the visual sighting of that boat, the sound of that boat. 

CRAWFORD: Why do you think the sound in this case is so important?

JENKINSON: Because each boat will sound different. I hear it when I'm diving, myself. You know that each boat has a different noise under the water. So, although you can't see the boat when you're diving, you can hear a boat somewhere. And that will sound different from the next boat that goes by.

CRAWFORD: We don't really know how these animals hear ...

JENKINSON: Of course, we don't. But I assume that they could pick up on the same thing.

CRAWFORD: Right. Do you think if a White Pointer has been exposed to cage dive operations, encountered that particular cage dive boat elsewhere at another time - that it would be more likely to investigate that particular boat?

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Why do you think that?

JENKINSON: The same thing - because they've seen it before. And the sound of that boat, associate it with food. Because they see these boats with such regularity, they become familiar with them. Perhaps over time they would forget it. If we were talking like they come here every day - and then three years later they encounter the same boat somewhere else, perhaps by then it may mean nothing to them. But I think, with the regularity that they see these boats, I would say they would recognize the cage diving boat.

CRAWFORD: Ok. Are you aware of any observations in which White Pointers were following boats? Any boat, not just the cage diving boats. Have you ever seen or heard of that?

JENKINSON: Heard, only. Second-hand information as well. Not directly from the DOC guys, but yes that they have had it on their boat, when they've been doing their tagging projects off Bench Island. Spend the morning there, and only had one Shark, maybe two Sharks hang around them here. After spending the morning there, and nothing else turning up, they decided to move. I'm not exactly sure where they moved to - they moved north to one of the others in this group here. Quite soon after that, they anchored and began the tagging process again. One of these same Sharks arrived at the boat again.

CRAWFORD: Really? Depending on which island it was that they went to after Bench, roughly what would be the distance? A mile?

JENKINSON: More than that - a couple mile.

CRAWFORD: So, a fairly big distance?

JENKINSON: Yep.

CRAWFORD: I don't the boat that DOC would have been working on. What do you reckon its cruising speed would have been? 

JENKINSON: Twelve or thirteen knots, I think.

CRAWFORD: Really? I find this story amazingly relevant, for a bunch of different reasons. Realizing it's still possible that berleying can have a dramatic effect over a large distance as well. But, do you think it would be fair to say that it's still possible the reason they saw that same individual White Pointer at the second island was because it had followed them?

JENKINSON: Yeah. 

CRAWFORD: Even at that speed?

JENKINSON: I'm not saying that Shark arrived at the same time as them. I'm talking over the rest of the afternoon, they did have that Shark there.

CRAWFORD: Fair enough. It could have been coincidental re-encounter of a wandering animal. It could have been an animal that followed a second berley trail. It could have been an animal that picked up the sound of the motor, and homed in.

JENKINSON: Of course, yeah.

CRAWFORD: Ok. That's one possibility of a White Pointer following a boat. Have you heard of anything else in this regard?

JENKINSON: Another story goes along the lines that last Shark season, summertime - this time of year, we had quite a lot of easterly wind. One of the Shark boats more or less based itself here on Stewart Island. The other one would return to Bluff each day. But the one that based itself here, due to it being easterlies it spent quite a lot of time being anchored at night time round here in Golden Bay. Then, first thing in the morning, he'd up and go, pick up his passengers. Around that same time, there were quite a number of sightings from the Golden Bay wharf, of White Sharks in that immediate area. Because of hearing those sorts of stories, the conclusion I've drawn is that they were there because of that boat being there. There were more sightings there, in that short time, than I've definitely ever heard of in all of Paterson Inlet. 

CRAWFORD: How does that reconcile with what you previously said about the new information coming from the DOC hydroacoustic receivers, in and around the Inlet? The idea that there are actually more White Pointers in Paterson Inlet than people realize?

JENKINSON: Not more than one at a time, but definitely more than one sighting. 

CRAWFORD: Alright. Let's progress to the final piece of complexity in that line of questioning about cage dive effects. Do you think that a White Pointer that has been exposed to cage dive operations, is likely to associate the smell of food with the presence of Humans in the water - such that, if they encounter a Human on or in the water elsewhere at another time, they would be more likely to investigate in regard to feeding?

JENKINSON: I think at a time, yes. Perhaps not right now. But the longer that cage diving goes on, I think that yes they will start to associate. They're coming to the boat because there's berley in the water. The other thing they see at that same time ... and I don’t know how they see, we don't know that - but there's a cage in the water with the silhouette of divers there. So, these three things all go together. The smell of food there, the sound of the boat, and now then there's the silhouette of divers as well. Albeit out there in a cage, but still I would think that's fairly obvious. The black silhouette of a diver, hanging in the water. So the, I think that over time if the Sharks see the silhouette of a diver somewhere else, then I think they're going to be more inclined to go and investigate.

C Do you think that would likely lead to an important increase in the probability of White Pointer-Human interaction elsewhere? Increase the frequency and intensity of those encounters?

JENKINSON: Yeah, I do. I think that they'd be smart enough to inquire about a silhouette, because in the past they've been rewarded.

CRAWFORD: You said previously that these White Pointers are quite smart. 

JENKINSON: Yeah.

CRAWFORD: Do you think most of them are smart enough to know that Humans are either not very tasty, or something that they really don't want to eat? That an attack would more likely be a case of mistaken identity? Where do they really come in on the 'smart' scale? 

JENKINSON: Well, I don't know. Good question, isn't it? When you're looking at Shark attacks around the world, the indication would be that it's a case of mistaken identity. 

CRAWFORD: Yes. The vast majority of attacks are non-consumptive. But as several people have mentioned in these discussions, even a gentle mistake by a White Pointer can be fatal. Blood loss or loss of a limb.

JENKINSON: Absolutely. 

CRAWFORD: And then you've got the idea that younger White Pointers could be very naive, and older White Pointers could be disabled or weak. They are big animals, adults are much bigger than us. And all they have is their mouth - they don't have appendages like arms or legs to work with. So when you get hit by a White Pointer, you get hit by a large mass at high speed with sharpness cutting down on you. 

JENKINSON: So, back to the original question - I don’t know. Where do you draw the line? How far does their intelligence go? Certainly, having seen them, they're smart enough to work out a fairly simple trick, really. "He's going to keep pulling that bait away from me. So, I'll get it from another direction."

Copyright © 2021 Ty Jenkisnon and Steve Crawford