Wednesday, 8 July 2026

Students learn to spy marine activity

    By Gemma Sinclair
    1. Southland
    2. The Ensign

    A spiny dogfish shark was spotted on Stewart Island by a baited underwater camera set up by four...
    A spiny dogfish shark was spotted on Stewart Island by a baited underwater camera set up by four Menzies College students. Photo: supplied
    Four teenagers are getting a taste of university studies while helping expand scientists’ knowledge of sharks in New Zealand.

    Four year 10 Menzies College students, Erin Wallis, Dusty Coley, Joe Kennedy, all 14, and Chris Vesey, 15, learnt tertiary-level marine science as part of the University of Otago’s Shark Spy project.

    Student Joe Kennedy said he enjoyed the university’s nationwide citizen science project by the university’s marine science department, which started in 2019, aimed to gather data on the demographics of the sharks in our waters, so scientists could better understand their behaviour.

    "It was pretty good ... [I enjoyed] doing the physical stuff, like putting the cameras into the [Paterson] inlet, and measuring the [water] temperature, and the wind speed."

    The three-day project in Paterson Inlet on Rakiura Stewart Island used baited underwater video (BUV), a box filled with sardine bait, with a video camera overhead, which was lowered to the sea floor.

    The camera captured animal activity at a variety of sites around Rakiura including Prices Point and Thule Bay.

    The students saw 24 species, not just sharks, swarm in the waters for their three-day stay in March.

    Two shark species dominated the data — carpet sharks and spiny dogfish.

    They saw 13 carpet sharks, and six spiny dogfish.

    Images of the marine life were uploaded to the publicly available citizen science platform iNaturalist.

    Year 10 Menzies College students (from left) Chris Vesey, Joe Kennedy, Erin Wallis and Dusty...
    Year 10 Menzies College students (from left) Chris Vesey, Joe Kennedy, Erin Wallis and Dusty Coley prepared a presentation for the New Zealand Marine Sciences Society Conference on their shark sightings on Stewart Island for Otago University’s Shark Spy project. Photo: Gemma Sinclair
    University of Otago marine science teaching fellow Rob Lewis, who led the project, said it was important young people engaged with science.

    "I think it’s incredibly important to plant the seed early on to provide experiences that may drive people into the direction of science."

    The four students presented their project at the NZ Marine Science Society Conference in Invercargill last Friday.

    This was the second group of Menzies College students to be involved in the project. The first cohort came through last year.

    The project was a personal trip down memory lane.

    "We’re effectively copying what I did for my Master’s back then [in 2019] with these students now," Mr Lewis said.

    "We have gotten these kids to do this in a record amount of time ... so they’ve done a phenomenal job."

    The thesis, published seven years ago, used BUV to gather data on the numbers, size and sex of broadnose sevengill sharks in 2016 and 2017.

    Schools in Dunedin, Taranaki, Nelson and the East Cape had also taken part in Shark Spy.

    The project was funded through the Ministry of Education.