Kaikoura: New Zealand’s canyon of life | FD Ocean

Morning on the Kaikoura Peninsula, on the east coast of New Zealand's South Island, world-famous home of the great sea mammals. Some locals, some just passing through. The Kaikoura neighbourhood is a breathtaking ecosystem, where some parents go to unexpected lengths to raise their offspring, and other youngsters discover an extraordinary place where they can prepare for adult life. Many species of marine creatures make their homes here, on the ancient rocky foreshore, in shallow pools carved by the tides, and in the big blue underwater world beyond. Four and a half kilometres out from the peninsula is the 1,200 metre deep Kaikoura Canyon. Here, ocean currents collide with this dramatic vertical face, pushing water upwards, which is seething with nutrients. This is the reason Kaikoura supports such a dazzling array of marine life. It's the morning rush hour in Kaikoura, and these commuters are dusky dolphins, one of New Zealand's most common dolphin species. This is the night shift, on their way home to rest. After a night spent feasting on the canyon's riches, their bellies are full, and they're ready to socialise. Dusky dolphins use their daily commute inshore to reunite with family members, and sometimes to attract a mate. This dusky female demonstrates a tactic that all dolphins use to get noticed. Pretty much all the available males respond. Speed and agility are the qualities a female looks for in a male, but it is possible this female dolphin is looking to mate just for fun. With a couple of well-placed nips, she makes her shortlist, and then it's on. Mating is one of the few reliable indicators of gender. The female is always on top. Dusky dolphins are known as a promiscuous species, in that they mate for social reasons, not just to produce offspring. The thrill of the chase is part of the game. But in these seemingly peaceful waters, danger lurks. Dusky dolphins' cousins, orca, pass through this neighbourhood regularly. And they occasionally snatch a straggling dusky, often a juvenile. But a large pod offers safety in numbers, so the orca continues on its way. Central to the richness of the Kaikoura food chain are these minute krill. Krill eat the microscopic plants known as phytoplankton, and pretty much everyone else eats them. Slightly bigger than krill, these are squat lobster, also known as whale krill. In fact, they share more DNA with hermit crabs than they do with either lobster or krill, and they grow to about the size of a human index finger. Squat lobster materialise out of nowhere, swimmerets outstretched, and eyes fixed on where they've been. They swim backwards. The abundance of tiny nutritious creatures like krill and squat lobster is a major attraction for another Kaikoura local. The peninsula is home to the South Island's largest breeding colony of red-billed gulls. Like many of the 5,000 or so members of this flock, this female has spent every one of her seven summers here. Many of her neighbours were born on the same gnarled limestone ledges where they're now building their nests. With the abundant fishing here, the colony is thriving. But for this female, there is a drawback to living here. The red-billed story is something of a chick flick. Female gulls outlive and therefore outnumber the males by a good 10%. A female red-billed is ready to reproduce at two years old, but at seven, this gull is still waiting for her first mate. All the best ones are taken. Her biological clock is ticking. Red-billed females come on strong to prospective mates who can afford to play hard to get. After a few rejections, she finds a willing male who goes straight back to his mate. Females waiting to lay their eggs stay at the nest site, so they rely on their mate to bring them food. He's failed in his duty, but the male in this nearby nest brings krill to his female. Courtship feeding is a crucial trade, ensuring the nesting female is fed and the male's genes are continued. Many red-billed gulls choose the same mate year after year, although the males are known to stray, which was a bonus for the seven-year-old single female because she's now carrying a fertilized egg. But with no mate, the odds for her and her chick's survival are not good. The Kaikoura Peninsula splays into the Pacific like an outstretched paw. In the rocky bays between its toes, more locals warm up in the morning sun. Male fur seals have been coming here for the fishing for 50 years or more, but since the turn of this century, females have been choosing to raise their young here too. Now it's an established breeding colony with a growing population of juveniles. The exceptional fishing in Kaikoura waters means the mothers are well nourished, so the seal pups here are nursed longer and grow bigger than fur seals in other parts of New Zealand. This five-month-old is still dependent on his mother's milk, but he's ready to exercise some independence. So when his hungry mother goes to sea to fish, the pup wanders away, exploring a new part of the beach. Something is drawing him further and further from home. Just south of the seal colony, in the relative safety of a sheltered bay, the dusky dolphins gather to rest. This male's lower jaw has been broken and healed like this. He may have survived an orca attack, but his sleep condition suggests it hasn't affected his ability to catch fish. Others, usually males, have damaged dorsal fins, possibly from fighting, but it doesn't slow them down. This lazy bumping and jostling could be friendly social contact, or it could be because these dolphins are half asleep. That is, half of each dolphin is asleep. They have to keep surfacing to breathe. So one side of the brain sleeps while the other side keeps an eye on things, literally. The eye on the sleeping side is half closed, while the other eye is open, so they probably don't even notice one of the locals passing through. This young female fur seal is on her way out to hunt at a spectacular offshore reef. Nearly 13 kilometres off the Kaikoura coast, this kelp on the ocean surface is a clue to what lies below. Kelp this far offshore is unusual, because it's not floating free. This is the canopy of a vast submarine forest of giant bladder kelp, which towers up to 30 metres high. It's attached to a shallow reef called Bushard Shoals. Mild ocean currents test the strength of the kelp's root systems, called holdfasts. These graceful sea trees provide shelter and trap nutrients for the many varieties of fish, crustaceans and sponges that live on the forest floor and the reef beyond. They also provide a home for the largest and the weirdest anemone in New Zealand waters. Most anemones live in colonies attached to rocky niches. The wandering anemone is an oddball exception, in that it wanders. It clings to the kelp with an adhesive foot until it has exhausted its food supply in one location. Then it detaches itself and allows the current to carry it. As it rides, it extends its water-filled column until its foot makes contact with a new piece of kelp. Then, inside its mouth, deadly toxic tentacles sweep plankton from the seabed or filter it from the water. The tentacles are controlled by a primitive nervous system, as the wandering anemone has no brain. However, its close neighbour, another wanderer, has more sophisticated powers of perception. Each year, these crayfish migrate almost 500 kilometres over several weeks, from deep water to the relative shallows of Bushard Shoals. Here they will molt and mate, because there's more food and shelter than the open ocean. Crayfish become aggressive as they prepare to mate, but have evolved a bizarre form of communication to establish their social order. Dominant status is expressed through chemical signals in a male's urine and transmitted through the water. If a male's antennae pick up signals of an opponent's higher status, he may just back down and not bother fighting at all. The richness of Bushard Shoals always guarantees a bounty for hungry hunters. The first seal has caught herself a red cod. Seal table manners actively encourage playing with your food. Her flippers can't hold her prey, so while she's chewing, she releases it into the current, then comes back for another bite when she's ready. It takes quite a while to eat a fish this way, but she needs to gorge herself, replenishing her all-important mother's milk. Fur seal mothers can spend more time at sea, as back on shore, their pups are growing older and can last longer between feeds. Longer separations enable pups like this five-month-old to venture further and further from home. Maybe he's picked up a scent, but something draws him along to a distant reach of the Kaikoura shore. Finally, he sees something he's never encountered before, a freshwater stream. In the stream, he discovers these pups returning to the colony, but the five-month-old doesn't follow them back to the shore. Instead, he continues exploring alone, heading upstream to where they came from. In the Red Bill colony, thousands of expectant parents wait. The seven-year-old female has laid an egg and has 25 days of incubating ahead of her. It's hot work, and with no sweat glands, panting is the only way for her to cool down. To keep eggs at just the right temperature, they have to be rolled often to ensure the heat inside is evenly distributed. No matter how hot it is, she will not leave the eggs unprotected. Her neighbors are constantly bickering over territory. Her nest is forever under repair, and she's hungry. So her new nest mate coming home to give her a break is likely a welcome sight. The single female is single no more, and her mate is a female. With the Kaikoura male shortage, many Red Billed gull nests have two mothers. Just like a male-female pair, the two females will share parenting duties equally, which is just as well, as there's about to be a brand new beak to feed. The other mother is going to have to fish even harder. A giant petrel passing through from Antarctica drops in, probably after some Kaikoura krill. This dusky female seems intrigued, until she finds some of her pod playing a game of pass the seaweed. A favorite among these sophisticated sea mammals. Everyone has their trademark moves. One piece of seaweed can provoke all kinds of deft maneuvers. Suddenly, two players have an urgent matter to attend to. Dolphins don't eat bird, but the petrel is taking no chances with these playful predators. Pass the seaweed doesn't just pass the time. Play in dusky dolphin society strengthens bonds and increases young dolphins' understanding of the world they live in. The world the Red Billed gulls live in allows no time whatsoever for play. One of the two mothers has been busy fishing at sea and is heading home with a crop full of krill. She's about to meet the first chick born in her blended family, and not a moment too soon. The nesting gull needs a break and the chick is desperate for its first meal. This first-time mother instinctively knows to regurgitate the nutritious krill. The hatchling still has its egg tooth, that white calcification on the top of its beak, used to break out of the egg. The tooth usually drops off after two days. Until then, both mothers must keep up their egg rolling duties. The seven-year-old seems to have found domestic bliss, but there's no certainty the other eggs will even make it to hatching. The rowdy black-backed gull gang from the next colony over are forever raiding the nursery for unprotected eggs or even chicks. Both mothers must remain constantly vigilant. It's a hot summer's day on the Kaikoura Peninsula. Like any kiwi beach, summertime brings the tourists flocking in. Like these spotted shags, spending summer here before heading off to join larger flocks when the weather cools. These white-fronted terns will fly to Australia in the autumn. The pied shags, though, tend to stick around. The heron's breeding season is over already, and the adults are free to enjoy the riches of the intertidal zone. The rock pools are an ever-changing treasure trove of mysterious organisms. Here lives a secretive, cunning creature lurking in the shadows. It appears there's nothing here but algae on rocks, although rocks don't usually have eyes. This algae is a disguise worn by a camouflage crab. Octopus, fish, seals, and birds are all quite fond of crab meat, and the camouflage crab is so slow-moving it has no chance of outrunning a predator. So it's evolved to become a master of disguise. Its specialty is its impression of a rock with seaweed growing on it. It takes a lot of effort to look this good. The crab has to collect the most appropriate accessories, and then get dressed. The crab attaches each piece of sea lettuce to his shell by hooking them onto velcro-like bristles, which grow there especially for this purpose. Sometimes a little spit is needed to glue its disguise into place. Maintenance to the cloak of invisibility is ongoing. The shell or carapace doesn't grow with the crab, so every few weeks it molts, and all that work has to be done again. A hunting heron is drawn to movement, but the camouflage crab senses the predator's approach and makes like a rock. Crab one, heron nil. For now. Back at the nest site, two chicks belonging to the female pair have hatched, and there's not a moment for the mums to relax. Like so many tight-knit neighborhoods, there are troublemakers. This loudmouth is getting way too close, so the female does what she has to, and sends him on his way. But it's not over yet. The loudmouth distracts her away from her chicks, and a rogue male attacks. Young adults who have not yet had chicks are known to cannibalize hatchlings in their own colony. Somehow the chick evades the attacker. To reach safety. That was a very close call. So both mothers resume their vigilant watch. As the afternoon sun moves over the seaward Kaikoura ranges, the dusky dolphin's play takes on a more purposeful mood. Tail slapping looks like fun, but this is practice for a special team fishing technique, where pod members work together to round up a whole school of fish into a ball. Once the fish are trapped, the dolphins take turns charging into the bait ball to devour the fish. But dusky dolphins adapt their hunting strategy depending on where they are. When they travel north of Kaikoura, they use their bait ball technique during daylight. In Kaikoura, duskies fish deep in the canyon at night, but any time of day they can be found working on the acrobatics that are a vital part of their hunting technique. One good flip from an individual and suddenly you've got a flash mob. Duskies are considered the most acrobatic species of dolphins, and they learn new tricks from watching each other. It's thought that even this joyful leaping is practice for synchronizing individuals to work together as a team. It also reinforces their social connections, making them a tightly bonded pod. With his mother still away at sea, the five-month-old pup leaves behind the familiarity of the shoreline where he was born. Following a scent of a stream, the further inland he goes, the more challenging the terrain. But the intrepid explorer seems undeterred. Then, his journey brings him to an extraordinary sight, one of Kaikoura's natural wonders. At the nest site where two females are sharing care of their chicks, one mother is now always on duty while the other feeds at sea. The best possible strategy to ensure the future of their offspring. When food is plentiful, the chicks may be fed as many as five times a day. While still covered in the fluffy down they hatched in, there won't be any test flights. Nearby, fledglings over 30 days old have lost their down and their flying feathers are starting to come through. When they reach their second year, their feet and bills turn red and the sleek white and grey of a fully fledged flyer takes over. As the chicks mature, they learn to forage alongside their parents in the bug-rich kelp on the shoreline. But these chicks will still take whatever they can get from their parents for as long as possible. Fueled by the rich pickings from this spectacular coastline, juvenile gulls demonstrate what all the chicks will be attempting in just a few more months. The Kaikoura coastline is heading into a long summer's dusk when the journey upstream finally ends for the intrepid seal pup. This is the Kaikoura nursery pool. Every breeding season when the females go to sea, more and more pups make the journey upstream to find it. Sometimes there are 200 pups here. It's the perfect setting for them to learn social skills, coordination and the fluid acrobatics of the ocean hunt. A harmless play fight is a rehearsal for adult life. If it's at all intimidating to this first time visitor, the cue backing up behind him helps him overcome his fear. In no time at all, he seems to be having the time of his life. As dusk sets in, some of the pups head downstream to the coast. Hunger and instinct tell them their mothers will be back from hunting soon. But many remain. With newfound confidence, the first time visitor decides to stay. His first night away from home. The night shift begins for the hunters of the Kaikoura Peninsula. The dusky dolphins leave the sheltered bays and head for the Kaikoura Canyon. They're refreshed as they travel the four and a half kilometers to this bountiful feeding site. There's always time for an extra game along the way. The dolphins set off as a vast commuting throng. But as they near their destination, they spread out, diving deep into the banquet hall, which is the Kaikoura Canyon. A humpback whale has brought her calf to this special place to begin its foraging career. Gently guided by its mother, it makes its first dive. As night descends over this big blue backyard.