A dream job: smelly seals and errant boaties

Gabrielle Goodin heads the team of rangers looking after marine reserves across New Zealand. She tells Helen Vause about the reserves – and the challenges of a conservation success story.

The waters of the Hauraki Gulf on a sparkling day are both a very happy place and something of a headache for Gabrielle Goodin.

As a marine-reserves ranger, it’s her job to try to ensure boaties and beach lovers are responsible citizens in the way they interact with this already fragile marine environment – and to get alongside them with the conservation message.

An important part of her role is enforcing the restrictions in the Auckland region’s five marine reserves: Cape Rodney-Okakari Point, Tāwharanui, Long Bay-Okura, Te Matuku at Waiheke Island, and Motu Manawa-Pollen Island in the Waitemata Harbour

And while those reserves, or national parks of the sea, have our highest level of marine protection, Bayswater resident Goodin says on fine days, when the Hauraki Gulf is alive with Aucklanders in their boats, she and her rangers will invariably find people fishing illegally in them.

Protecting the reserves is an uphill battle, she says.

Goodin is one of the three marine-reserves rangers in Auckland, the first generation of these rangers on our seas and shorelines, who have been appointed by the Department of Conservation (DoC) in recent years to step up marine protection.

As well as having her eye over the Hauraki Gulf, she has recently stepped up to become head of the national marine-reserve protection team, with 13 rangers reporting to her across 44 marine reserves.

The issues and conservation threats across the country are very different and so too are the circumstances the rangers are working in.

A ranger heading out to sea off Fiordland, for example, is highly likely to know the name of every skipper and boat they connect with, says Goodin. But in Auckland it’s a very different story for the three rangers who work shifts to cover seven days of the week.

“On a decent day, it’s a sea of boats out there. And the sight of us in our small boat is not necessarily a deterrent to people breaking the rules in the marine reserves – most of them are not aware that they’re even in a reserve, or that they’re not supposed to be fishing.”

Dishing out $600 fines to anyone with a line in the water in any of the reserves is a regular feature of patrols.

Managing the pressure of recreation on the gulf is a big part of her job and so too is public education and raising awareness of the reserves. Goodin says her role lets her work national responsibilities and her roster around the life of her nine-year-old son Asher, who attends Devonport Primary School. “I feel pretty lucky doing what I love for a job.”

It was probably the working life she was headed for when she completed her masters degree in marine conservation in 2013. When she graduated, she took a job in marine tourism, working on a Dolphin Encounter boat in Kaikoura. Next she went to Queensland and took a crash course on the teeming tropical fish of the Great Barrier Reef when she was hired as a marine-science advisor on a tourism dive boat.

But her interest was in being in a position to make a real difference. She returned to New Zealand and joined the DoC ranks.

The ranger team wasn’t established in the Hauraki Gulf a day too soon, she says.

There is now an accepted urgency about the need for restorative and protective action.

Goodin recently qualified as a skipper. Before she started her national role, many days were spent on the water between Waiheke Island and Long Bay, working in defence of the city’s acquatic playground.

Other aspects of her job include scientific monitoring, advocacy and education.

The importance of the marine reserves to the ongoing health of our waters and all the life within them, cannot be overstated, she says.

As areas free from the pressures of fishing, they provide a place where marine habitats and life can thrive and also provide a study ground for scientists.

Over half of New Zealand’s 17,000 species are only found here. They include an amazing array of fish, invertebrates and seaweeds.

The reserves are also doing a staggering share of the work as breeding grounds for the gulf in compensation for overfishing.

Goodin says that when scientists took DNA samples from snapper in the marine reserve at Goat Island, it was found to account for 10 percent of the DNA in the species tested in other parts of the Hauraki Gulf. In other words, a lot of the regional snapper population could be traced back to that one reserve alone.

When The Flagstaff caught up with Goodin, the local mum had recently donned her uniform for an educational talk to children and parents at Devonport Primary School.

Her subject was fur seals and, in particular, the young pups arriving on our shorelines in growing numbers every winter.

It’s part of her job to make sure people know enough about the visitors to have happy and safe encounters with them.

Because the seals are returning to what was once their territory before their populations were wiped out through brutal over-predation, Goodin says we are likely to see more of the pups coming ashore in ‘seal season’.

Education campaigns are building more understanding that these pups on the beaches and rocks, and around wharves and jetties, are not lost or distressed. They are teenagers booted out by mothers before another pup baby arrives. And they’re often skinny when they get here because they’re still learning how to find food.

The conservation message for local people, who might encounter a seal on coastal walks from May to September, is hopefully taking root, says Goodin.

Although there is a known breeding colony on the North Island’s west coast, near Raglan, their breeding place on the upper east coast is not yet identified.

Where the pups come from to slide up onto Cheltenham Beach is yet to be established, so it’s unknown how far they have travelled to get here.

Goodin chuckles at memories of her first seal encounter in a West Auckland backyard, when she was a rookie marine ranger.

Her boss came along equipped with basic wooden shields, and between them they were able to manoeuvre the large creature to where they wanted it.

And for all the seals’ goofy appeal, she’s sure on one thing – “yeah, they stink”. They can also be carrying “pretty icky” diseases and can give a very nasty bite, she adds.

Owha, the charismatic, if smelly, leopard seal who for a time frequented the Bayswater and Westhaven marinas, was regularly on Goodin’s radar in her first days as a ranger.

The guidelines are to keep dogs on a leash and a watchful eye on children. We should stay 20 metres clear, letting them rest where they’ve come ashore for a break, which could be just between tides or for some days.

If the animal is hurt or at risk, people should call for expert intervention on 0800 DOC HOT.

The re-establishment of the fur-seal population is a success story, but there is more to learn about their habits and movements, says Goodin.

After a number of summers as a regular visitor, Owha sadly she hasn’t been seen for a while. When she was in close range, scientists were able to take faeces samples to learn more about what she was eating. She was found to have digested a pukeko.

“Goodness knows where she’d got it from,” says Goodin, of this little detail from the ongoing monitoring of marine life.

It’s her dream job, she says, and a job for life.

“I couldn’t ask for more than working in a field I love with others who are passionate about.” their work too.”

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