An extraordinary sight this summer was the large number of rig sharks basking in the shallow water of Oriental Bay. Dozens of people stood awestruck and waded among them, quietly watching the animals on several days and evenings in January and February. It was an eerie experience seeing such large wild animals in the urban context and sharing their natural habitat.
At the same time, the story of the taniwha of Te Whanganui-ā-Tara was being projected on the fountain and amplified from the nearby Rotunda, part of the 2021 Trustpower Performance Arcade festival. The story told of two taniwha who lived in the harbour long ago and explored how they created the landscape of Wellington as we know it today.
On one evening, a pod of dolphins even swam just beyond the rig sharks and the fountain. Altogether it was an incredible piece of performance art on a massive (unplanned) scale – awesome!
Rig sharks are also known as “lemon fish” or spotted dogfish, and are caught all over New Zealand for supermarkets and fish-and-chip shops. Adult female rig grow to about a metre long and migrate into shallow coastal waters in summer to give birth to live young and then mate before departing for deeper waters.
The sharks are bronze or grey with white spots on top, with a white belly, flattened teeth like paving stones forming grinding plates, and feed mainly on animals that burrow in the sea floor, like crabs.
— Felicity Wong, Bay View Online newsletter, May 2021
Rig sharks in the shallows of Oriental Bay