Nature restocks in quiet Gulf waters
“Watching nature catch her breath” is how Laura Neureuter describes spending lockdown on an island in the middle of the Hauraki Gulf.
The state of Auckland’s big blue backyard has been under the microscope after a report in February highlighted the damage of decades of overfishing and pollution.
But the six weeks of Covid19 restrictions have provided perhaps the only time in modern history without the constant whine of motor boats, fish hooks and nets dangling over the edge — and nature appears to be responding.
“Normally you wake up to the sound of a boat, and it doesn’t end until sunset as they head back to Auckland. But lately the quiet has been incredible,” said Neureuter, 23.
Neureuter and partner Oliver De Silva have spent the lockdown on O¯ tata Island, part of the Noises island chain, which has been in the Neureuter family for generations.
They have seen blue penguins coming ashore and “partying” under their bach, while watching petrels, shearwaters, terns and shags chase bountiful bait fish just offshore.
Rays have been coming to the shallows in numbers they have never seen, and even a pod of six adult orcas and a baby spent a couple of hours swimming around.
“We’re aware of how fortunate we are to be here, to be able to watch nature catch her breath.”
As a girl, her aunt Sue Neureuter, 58, learned to snorkel with her siblings among vast kelp forests, nurseries to myriad fish and shellfish species. But these expanses are now bare, except for deserts of kina barrens.
However, she has found the water crystal clear with plenty of fish when snorkelling in the past two weeks.
The nearly two-month “break” for nature comes after the State of Our Gulf report, released in February, showed a dramatic decline in many fish species, and crayfish classed as “functionally extinct”.
During alert levels 4 and 3 recreational boating and fishing have been banned. Commercial fishing has continued as an essential service, although that is largely restricted in the inner Gulf.
“Recreational fishing has a huge impact in the Hauraki Gulf — Auckland has some of the highest rates of boat ownership per capita in the world,” University of Auckland marine scientist Dr Andrew Jeffs said. “Marine animals are incredibly in tune with the environment, so they are likely now going to areas they might have avoided before due to noise.”
He implored the Covid-19 economic recovery to also focus on the marine space.
“When they are thinking about ‘shovel-ready projects’, I hope some will be shovelling mussels into the Hauraki Gulf to help restore shellfish beds. Not only will that help the environment, but it will boost fish stocks, and in turn the economy, too.”
Hauraki Gulf Forum cochair Nicola Macdonald said it was exciting hearing the changes seen in the Gulf since the lockdown.
“We’ve heard reports of large flocks of seabirds, birds coming much closer to urban areas, even juvenile fish in the now clear waters of O¯ kahu Bay — kuia and kauma¯tua there speak of not seeing that since their childhoods,” said Macdonald. “It shows as the pressures are taken off, nature responds.”