A group of university students are performing a study involving Te Papa’s social media use and they need your help.
They have put this survey together, which will be open until Wednesday 13 February:
EDIT: The survey is now closed. A big thank you to all of you who took the time to complete it.
Your participation is greatly appreciated!!
Wed 11/05/11
Our video deployments are revealing day after day a bit more of the particular fish fauna of the Raoul Island. The most remarkable feature we observe is the large amount of sharks. And to be honest, I would not like them to come to close during a dive. Bronze whalers and galapagos sharks are here very common. It is not surprising to find them in high abundance since the area is protected and have consequently not been fished.
Deployment of a video unit
The survey is progressing well and we hope having completed our deployments in about 2-3 days. The weather is decent, without being exceptional. We had to work every day in 2-3m swells which did not cause us too much problems.
Speak to you soon,
Vincent
The Kermadec Islands’ are the most isolated piece of rock that New Zealand has, some 1,000km North of Tauranga, right in the middle of very deep oceans. The isolation, recent geological origin and predominantly subtropical marine flora and fauna make them unique both nationally and internationally. I often imagine the Kermadec as one of the last untouched area on the planet.
Many species found at the Kermadecs do not occur on mainland New Zealand. The limited sampling to date has discovered that almost every major taxonomic group studied so far, with the exception of the algae and corals, has one or more species endemic to the islands.
On Wednesday, I am leaving with a team of Te Papa scientists to work on the fish fauna of this fantastic location. It’s going to be a three long days trip steaming to Raoul Island, the main island of the Kermadec. Then, we will mostly do video and collecting work, deploying systems from the shallow and colourful 50m depth zone, to the dark deep-sea waters beyond 1500m where no light penetrates. It is a very exciting time and I expect lots of new discoveries out of this survey. Hopefully, I will be able to share them with you with the help of satellite communication. Thank you technology!
More to come later…
Vincent
More about the Fish Team and our projects, including links to videos
