Yesterday (Monday, May 25th), we spent a lot of time with Brian’s friend Richard. I think I learned more that morning/afternoon than I have any other single day in New Zealand so far. He was extremely knowledgeable about New Zealand’s current marine wildlife situation and he shared the facts and stories in a fun and effective way. We went over a lot of different things but I will just try and mention a few key things that moved me the most.
The Touch the Sea aquarium experience was great. We got to touch eels, sharks, starfish and other underwater animals. The large tank had scarlet wrasse, a short tail stingray, an eagle ray, trumpeters, red maki, snappers, and blue cod among numerous other types of fish. We saw some huge packhorse rock lobsters that are relatives of crayfish, seahorses, a red eared turtle, a blowfish, and the octopi were very neat to watch too. The common octopi (Octopus maorum) there live only for about 18 to 24 months, which was surprising to me. They are predators that eat crabs and small fishes at night, though I think they are definitely capable of eating larger things. Everything was very new to me and I thought it was a great experience.
Richard got to talking about orange roughy, scampie, seals and tuna, among many other things. I thought it was interesting that seals have one o f the largest nocturnal migrations. They eat hokey (the liver and brain have the most energy, and they leave the rest as scraps). Some fishers want the seals dead because they mistakenly think they kill too many fish. Quotas need to be calculated and better considered. This is a problem in New Zealand as well as around the world. He also mentioned that tuna may be extinct in about ten years. They are nearing commericial and ecological extinction. That really boggled my mind! I guess I hear so little about shortages and overfishing that it never really considered it a real problem. Hearing it from someone so knowledgeable and passionate about the marine life, and New Zealand’s pristine nature in general really made it more impactful.
Finally I just have to mention the walk on the beach while before the tide came in and the sun set. That was absolutely incredible for me. I got to see and hold hairy handed crabs, common rock crabs, smooth shore crabs, sea stars, sunflower stars, half crabs, a sea squirt, a flatworm, mussels snails and chitins. Bill told me a bit about chitins. We could identify the head, foot, gills in groves on the sides, and the hard outer shell (in 8 segments). They eat in an interesting way. Bill described that their tongue is a chainsaw-like foot that helps it move along as well as eat. Here are a few pictures (sorry about the low quality). Chitins, and the underbelly of an octopus:
Sweet pic
ReplyDelete