Measuring Paua

I've been spending the week helping measure paua at the aquaculture facility over at Mahanga Bay. These are offspring from Broodstock from all over NZ- Tory Channel, Kaikoura, Chatham Islands, Wairarapa.

There are over 100 families breed here- crossing this means a huge number to measure. On Thursday we measured over 1200 paua!!! Whew!- Graeme Moss said that was a record. (I'm dreaming about these slimy things now!!)                                                          

Tank of paua. These are about 18 months old. They are the beautiful blue colour because of the food they are being fed.

Each paua is tagged with a disc on a small spring. This is attached to the side of the shell and the shell then continues to grow around it.

Graeme carefully getting the paua for us to measure. The water was freezing so he kindly let me off me  doing this! There were 18 tanks in all. Some above others (like pictured here)

                                                               Measuring the paua- anywhere between 30-70mm average.

                                                                            Weighing the paua on their shell. They turn themselves over if you are too slow- then stick to the plate. (I wonder how I know that!!)

The tag number is recorded on this data base with the animal's length and weight. Then they are divided into one of 4 new trays or culled.

Trip to Riversdale and Castle Point

A glorious day for a trip up to Riversdale and Castle Point today with Jeff Forman and Dean Stotter. They were checking on some Rock Lobster (Crayfish) traps they have there and didn’t mind me tagging along with them.

Back in February, Dean had shown me some baby lobsters (puerulus) they had collected. These little guys get around that’s for sure! Quite staggering really. They hatch from under their mother’s tail and then spend the next 18 months as larvae far out at sea. They then find their way to shore and into sheltered nooks and cracks (and lobster traps) metamorphosing into a transparent, miniature lobster (puerulus). They then grow and moult until they are mature (about 6 years old)

The purpose of having these Lobster Traps is to keep an average count of Rock Lobster at the puerulus stage so a quota can be set for fishing in 5 years time. NZ exports a lot of lobster to Japan and China.

Jeff has other people checking traps around the coast of NZ in places like Jacksons Bay, Moeraki and Kaikoura in the South Island and up north near Napier.

Jeff and Dean have been doing this once a month for the last 20 years! Certainly work well together!

Black Coral

I had heard that corals were animals (even though they look like plants to me!). Working in the Collection Room though means I have been in contact with some amazing Black coral and have learnt a bit more about them.

Corals are animals that live in a compact colony of heaps of tiny polyps. They secrete calcium carbonate (same stuff shells are made of) to form a hard skeleton.

Black corals are branch-like and are related to sea anemones.  They uniquely have tiny spines that can be very sharp and they cover the surface of the skeleton.

Dean and Black Coral.

There are around 58 black coral species in NZ and they mainly are found in dark waters between 200 – 1000m in depth.  Because the waters are so dark in the Fiordland National Park though, they can be found as shallow as 10m depth.

Black Corals are a protected species and it is illegal to collect this unless you have a special permit. Even then, with a special permit- you can only pass it on to someone else if they have a special permit too!

oh, and an octopus today as well!

Niwa's Supercomputer!

Here at Niwa in Wellington, is one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world! It is one of its kind and has been running since 2010. This computer cost  $12.7 million and is focused on  problems of national and international significance – from climate change and natural hazards forecasting to modelling the human body.

The IBM p575 POWER6 supercomputer is one of the most powerful computers in the world for use in environmental research and forecasting and the most powerful of its kind in the southern hemisphere.



Photography credit: NIWA



The Niwa Website has a fantastic video telling you all about this powerful computer. Click here to view.

The Weather Report

Most weeks, Niwa's Stuart Moore gives a weather briefing for the following weekend. Here is an example of last weekend's forecast- it was quite accurate.

Weather brief

View more presentations from Room5hhs2011.

Click here for more information on reading a weather map.

Argo Floats missing in action!

I was checking on how the Argo Floats we helped get ready were down south and saw that 3 were missing! They hadn't come back up to the surface to send off data for nearly 3 weeks. Feeling a little concerned and being the responsible person that I am, I pointed this out - only to get the reply "Carol, I'm not sure whether you're familiar with the way the "ice-avoiding" floats work"
These three Floats are down around the Ross Ice Shelf.

From early autumn to late spring every year Antarctica’s sea ice almost doubles the size of the continent!
This means though that Argo Floats in this area get caught under the ice. If they hit or rub up against floating ice they can be damaged or destroyed.

 
So they avoid ice (sounds like a good plan!)
There are especially designed ice-sensing floats that check the ocean temperature each time they ascend. If the temperature gets very close to the freezing point, the float will stop heading towards the surface at 5-10 m depth and go back to its parking depth, and try again 7-10 days later.

The float stores its profile data in memory. There is enough memory in this type of float to store as many as 68 profiles (although it is usually doesn't need to store more than 40 profiles between contacts with the satellite) Data transmission through the Iridium system is quite fast and each profile can be uploaded in no more than 2 minutes.

Leadership in Action

Kousez and Posner write:

“The Leadership Challenge is about how leaders mobilize others to want to get extraordinary things done in organisations. It’s about the practices leaders use to transform values into actions, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into solidarity, and risks into rewards. It’s about leadership that creates the climate in which people turn challenging opportunities into remarkable success.”

(From preface The Leadership Challenge Kousez and Posner, 2007 p3)

The Five Practices of LeadershipKousez and Posner identify the five practices:

Fern Spore

After the very cool visit to Nga Manu, I came across this amazing video clip of Fern Spore. Not a fern we saw, but a fascinating mechanism anyway!

A visit to Nga Manu

I had a fantastic time with two fellow Teacher Fellows, Wendy and Steve last Wednesday. Wendy showed us around Nga Manu, a Nature Reserve that she is based at. Nga Manu Nature Reserve is a 14 hectare reserve located just north of the Waikanae township on the Kapiti Coast of New Zealand. It encompasses the largest single remaining remnant of coastal lowland swamp forest on the Kapiti Coast. 


Hope I got the fern names right Wendy! Many thanks for the insightful tour!

Ocean acidification- a purpose-built experimental facility

Graeme is at it again! ( I owe this guy a fruit cake!) Here he is explaining about a purpose-built experimental facility for testing Ocean Acidification. Increased CO2 means a lowering of the Ocean's pH. Animals at a lower pH actually loss shell weight, which means the shells are dissolving under the more acidic conditions, or they arent generating new shell as quickly as they would have under normal conditions. Apologies for the sound (again) Lots of water around! Click on the image for the link to the youtube clip

Paua Aquaculture

Graeme Moss works closely with the Paua breeding programme. You can't but help notice where his passion is! Once again, being in a watery environment the sound isn't that great- apologies for this. Click on the image for a link to the youtube clip. There is a transcript for this.

Sea Cucumbers

Graeme Moss works out at Mahanga Bay Aquaculture Base and very kindly showed Puti and myself around. Here is a small clip showing the Sea Cucumber growing there. Click on the image for the link to the youtube clip.

Sea Cucumber can grow well under Paua farms. Despite its appearance, the creature is popular in Asian cuisine and is also used medicinally.