“Managing fisheries is hard: it’s like managing a forest, in which the trees are invisible and keep moving around,” said British scientist John Shepherd in 1978, and though there have been innovations since then, counting fish is still a challenge.
Wellington is shrouded in grey the morning I board the Kaharoa, a research vessel belonging to NIWA. As we head into Cook Strait, close-fitting clouds cover the cobalt cliffs of Bering Head like a duvet, and Cape petrels with their paint-splashed wings skim over the slumping sea.
For humans, August isn’t the ideal month for a voyage into some of New Zealand’s roughest waters, but for hoki, it’s party time. Deep in the undersea canyons criss-crossing the strait, hundreds of thousands of them are making their annual pilgrimage to spawn.
