Richard Robinson

Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary

The proposed Kermadecs Ocean Sanctuary stretches over 620,000 square kilometres of sea, pocked with small rocky islands and riddled with underwater volcanoes and deep trenches. It supports life not found anywhere else in the world. Yet the sanctuary remains unratified; subject to a fisheries dispute currently before the courts and the rubber stamp of Parliament. What’s at stake?

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Short - Kermadecs

Video: Birdlife at the Kermadecs

The Kermadec Islands are a haven for seabirds, but it wasn't always this way. At the end of the 20th century, Raoul Island was practically devoid of birdlife. Seabird scientist Chris Gaskin reveals a remarkable story of recovery.

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Geography

Underwater volcanoes

The Kermadec Arc is the longest underwater volcanic ridge on the planet. It is also highly active, creating great calderas on the sea floor and spewing rafts of pumice that drift on the surface for thousands of kilometres. Scientists are only beginning to understand the diversity of life that takes advantage of this unstable environment.

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Living World

Submarine wonderland

A thousand kilometres north-east of the mainland, the Kermadec group basks in a subtropical environment and two decades of marine protection. Now, scientists are discovering an ecosystem unlike anything else in the country.

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Living World

First stop on the humpback highway

The migration of Oceania’s humpback whales, and their final destination in Antarctica, has remained shrouded in mystery. This year, a team of scientists travelled north to intercept and track the whales travelling south. What they discovered only made the great migration more intriguing.

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RNZ - Smart Talk

Audio: Our oceans

With the gods Poseidon and Tangaroa in mind, Wallace Chapman talks with marine scientists Dr Rochelle Constantine and Dr Tom Trnski, the musician Don McGlashan and the CEO of Sustainable Coastlines Sam Judd about the oceans which surround us.

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Documentary - Wild South

Up with the birds

Boobies, noddies, tropic-birds, parakeets and many other bird species unknown on the New Zealand mainland are now the only residents on treeless Macauley Island in the Kermadec Group. The film moves through a day with the various nesting colonies and concludes that Macauley Island, which itself is emerging from a period of severe environmental stress, should now be left to the birds.

Sentinel, a hingebeak shrimp stands at attention on a Turbinaria coral at North Chanter Island in the Herald Islets—a small cluster of islands off the eastern shore of the main island of Raoul. The Kermadec Islands are distributed over two degrees of longitude and harbour tropical species such as these, more commonly seen on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as temperate water varieties common to the mainland.
Usually a metre long with conspicuous teeth—but sometimes attaining a length of two metres—the speckled moray is a fearsome-looking fish. It is also a highly effective predator, ambushing prey during the day from hidden lairs like this one, covered in coral polyps at Raoul Island, and hunting more widely at night. They’re equipped with large teeth, designed to tear flesh as opposed to holding or chewing, and a second set of jaws deep in their throat, also equipped with teeth, which are used to drag prey into the digestive system.
Striped boarfish put on a show at the largest of the Milne Islets. The group takes its name from its snout-like beak, though few species are as colourful or dramatically patterned as these. They are rare on the mainland and typically found in pairs or small groups at the Kermadecs. This aggregation of 38 individuals is a remarkable sight, and may be the same group recorded in this location by NIWA researcher Malcolm Francis two decades ago.
A purple gorgonian sea fan spreads its fingers to catch nutrients at Dayrell Island in the Herald Islands. Like all of the 500 species of its order the fan is actually a massive colony of gorgonian polyps, each with eight tentacles filtering plankton and particles from the prevailing currents. As the fan grows it reaches further from reef walls to maximize its food supply. Here, planktivorous mado fish—sometimes called “eastern footballers” in Australia, on account of the resemblance to the striated uniforms of Aussie Rules players—ply the same wall, a very different browser looking for bigger pieces of the same food.