Twenty-three rig sharks and a stingray were found dead in Porirua Harbour in what conservation groups are calling a “distressing” and “highly unusual” discovery.<\/p>\n
The sharks were found last Thursday in the P\u0101uatahanui Inlet by Greater Wellington Regional Council staff carrying out routine sediment monitoring.<\/p>\n
Porirua Harbour Trust chairperson Michael Player told 1News the sharks appeared to have been dumped overnight.<\/p>\n
“They were found by council officers doing regular monitoring, and it was clear from how fresh they were that it likely happened the previous night,” Player said.<\/p>\n
The sharks had their gills slit, while the stingray had its barb removed. All were dead when discovered.<\/p>\n
Greater Wellington environmental scientist Rachel Parry said the find was deeply concerning.<\/p>\n
“Finding dead sharks in these numbers was distressing and highly unusual,” she said.<\/p>\n
Parry said another rig shark was also seen alive but injured in the nearby Onepoto Inlet the same morning.<\/p>\n
The P\u0101uatahanui Inlet was a critical habitat for rig sharks, also known as lemonfish, particularly during spring and summer.<\/p>\n
“During springtime, the Porirua Harbour is a precious breeding ground for rig sharks, and in summer and autumn it’s considered a high-value nursery,” Parry said.<\/p>\n
“It plays a very important role in sustaining population numbers, as rig sharks are known to return to the same areas to give birth and mate.”<\/p>\n
Player said the discovery was especially upsetting given how rarely the species is seen in the harbour.<\/p>\n
“I’ve lived here for 11 years, I walk it, paddleboard it, use it a lot. I’ve never seen a rig shark myself,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They’re very shy animals, so to see 23 that had been slaughtered was quite distressing.”<\/p>\n
Fisheries New Zealand district manager Aaron Mendoza said the agency was notified by local commercial fishers and had examined photographs of the animals.<\/p>\n
“We can confirm the sharks are rig, which are targeted by commercial fishers and sometimes caught as bycatch by recreational fishers,” Mendoza said.<\/p>\n
“Given the marks on the sharks and the cutting of the gills, we think it’s likely they were cut free from a recreational set net.”<\/p>\n
Set netting was illegal in the inlet, and Fisheries New Zealand said restrictions also applied along much of the west coast of the lower North Island.<\/p>\n
“While it is legal to discard rig shark in limited circumstances, it’s unclear where the net was set,” Mendoza said.<\/p>\n
“We remind all set net fishers that it is illegal to set inside four nautical miles offshore from the coast of H\u0101wera south to the Wellington Harbour entrance.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-three rig sharks and a stingray were found dead in Porirua Harbour in what conservation groups are calling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1313,64,63,75,128,25904,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-450557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-wellington","14":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}