It’s about the ‘FISH’ not the ‘ING’
By Sid Marsh
Long before I commenced work as a wildlife ranger specializing in terrestrial ‘celebrity species’ like kākāpō, kiwi and kōkako, I had been exposed to, and developed a full blown passion for, this country’s iconic native sea fishes and marine fauna: those special critters inhabiting Tikapa Moana o Hauraki, and the warmer seas of Aotearoa, right up to the Kermadec Islands.
I loved these wild ika, loved them merely for their intrinsic natural value.
Today, when one googles these same fish on the net, it is clear a significant cross section of Kiwis today categorize them in three ways only:
1. How to catch them,
2. How to cook them, or
3. How to convert them (on an industrial scale) into fiscal profit.
Aotearoa is where India was a good century ago, pertaining in particular to the subcontinent’s terrestrial wildlife. Back then the only wildlife study undertaken was that pertaining to the kill, over the top of a gun sight.
Fortunately, especially for the tiger, India implemented ongoing conservation measures (read: gazetted no-take reserves) fifty years ago and this keystone umbrella predator, with its corresponding pyramid of prey and habitat, has since bounced back.
Aotearoa, meanwhile, in regards to its fish and sub-tidal wilderness habitats, is still mired in the senseless catch ’em, kill ’em, cook ’em loop: utterly foul-hooked by a fishing-fisheries-fishers mindset.
My diving career spans half-a-century, with 43 years of that as a scuba diver.
I have experienced firsthand our best sub-aquatic worlds when they still had NOTABLE fish, so I know what has been lost to over-harvesting. This relentless fishing issue transcends national boundaries, genders, cultures, religions, war, pollution, commercial interests, and even climate change.
Incidentally, below are some of my favourite ika:
1. About half the size of a fat earthworm, the mimic blenny is one of my top guys. He sports orange, green, silver and yellow colours and hides within a hazy cloud of schooling oblique-swimming triplefins. When a much larger fish skirts the edge of the school the sinuous mimic darts in and nips off a morsel of scale/fin from the passing innocent. I first struck these cheeky blennies when scoping the reefs around volcanic White Island.
2. Resembling a gold-streaked torpedo is the yellowfin tuna. To be buzzed by these fast-movers in clear oceanic water is something not quickly forgotten. I have struck them from the Three Kings north to Minerva Reefs, Tonga, and right across to New Guinea.
3. Some of the big groupers can be up to a century old. They are lovable, curious and very intelligent creatures. One can see this intelligence in their eyes as they come in close to check you out. Standout memories are 50+ kg bass hiding in caverns, and sleek hāpuku schooling over a deep pinnacle, along with thousands of schooling fish, giant kingfish and sharks all in the same frame. Spotted black grouper I have encountered both at the Three Kings and the Kermadecs. Their chameleon eyes swivel this way and that as they nudge a diver aside to access marine inverts exposed by a tumbled boulder. When giving them a scratch under the jaw they will lean in and change colour from black to speckled white.
4. Trevally schools comprising many thousands of giant individuals feeding at the surface with petrels and gulls diving into the melee. These immense schools used to be a feature of northern Aotearoa and around the Three Kings.
5. Mango-taniwha. I’d seen the results of this species’ work off the sub-Antarctic Snares, and also around the Three Kings, but it wasn’t until last year that I saw no fewer than three of these keystone predators underwater at Rakiura. The largest was a 4.5m male with ripped dorsal, pronounced caudal keel, cucumber-like claspers and a cylindrical tuna shape not apparent in photos.
All going well, one day Waiheke and the greater Gulf will again see some of these special marine animals above.
Thankfully, 93% of my fellow Kiwis who back no-take marine reserves agree.
