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A recording of Radio New Zealand National from 5am to midnight. The following rundown is sourced from the broadcaster’s website. Note some overseas/copyright restricted items may not appear in the supplied rundown:
05 March 2015
===12:04 AM. | All Night Programme===
=DESCRIPTION=
Including: 12:05 Music after Midnight; 12:30 One in Five (RNZ); 1:05 Discovery (BBC); 2:05 The Thursday Feature (RNZ); 3:05 Wrestling with God, by Lloyd Geering (11 of 12, RNZ); 3:30 NZ Books (RNZ); 5:10 Witness (BBC)
===5:50 AM. | In Parliament===
=DESCRIPTION=
===6:00 AM. | Morning Report===
=DESCRIPTION=
Radio New Zealand's three-hour breakfast news show with news and interviews, bulletins on the hour and half-hour
=AUDIO=
06:00
Top Stories for Thursday 5 March 2015
BODY:
Nicky Hager says the Snowden files show New Zealand is spying on its Pacific neighbours and passing all intercepted information onto the United States. Customs wants the power to demand laptop and phone passwords from travellers and Winston Peters says he doesn't need a deal with Labour to win the Northland by-election.
Topics:
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 28'59"
06:06
Sports News for 5 March 2015
BODY:
An update from the team at RNZ Sport.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 2'02"
06:17
Pacific News for 5 March 2015
BODY:
The latest from the Pacific region.
Topics: Pacific
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 2'52"
06:21
Morning Rural News for 5 March 2015
BODY:
News from the rural and farming sector.
Topics: rural, farming
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 4'08"
06:25
Te Manu Korihi News for 5 March 2015
BODY:
The Prime Minister, John Key, has avoided responding directly to an idea by the Māori Party, which is calling for an inquiry into the justice system for what it says is institutional racism. A Canterbury kapa haka team performing at Te Matatini - the national Māori cultural festival in Christchurch - says it's under extra pressure to perform but at the same time are confident about having a "home town" advantage. A busines owned by the King Country iwi Ngati Manipoto has made yet another profit, making almost three-quarters of a million dollars last year. A Ruapehu says since it was included in the Whanganui River Deed of Settlement, it now has a better relationship with its kinfolk and the tribal entity that helps to look after the river.
Topics: te ao Māori
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 3'37"
06:38
NZ spying on pacific neighbours
BODY:
The investigative journalist, Nicky Hager, says New Zealand is spying on its Pacific neighbours, and passing on vast amounts of information from intercepted communications en masse to America's National Security Agency
Topics: Pacific, politics
Regions:
Tags: spying, GCSB
Duration: 4'48"
06:48
Spark sells the last of its large non-core assets
BODY:
It's the end of an era for Spark, following the sale of Telecom Rentals to Australia's FlexiGroup for 106-million dollars.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: Telecom Rentals, Spark
Duration: 1'50"
06:50
Barfoot says Auckland house prices could fall slightly in 2016
BODY:
Auckland's leading real estate agent says housing supply in the region is likely to remain tight for most of this year, but a ramp-up in the building of new houses could see house prices retrace 2 or 3 percent next year.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: Barfoot and Thompson
Duration: 2'28"
06:52
Markets looking ahead to next dairy season
BODY:
An economist says players in the global dairy market are turning their attention to the next dairy season.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: dairy price, Fonterra
Duration: 1'30"
06:54
Diligent could be entering a very crowded market with Teams
BODY:
Information about Diligent Board Member Services' new product is preliminary, but the software-as-a-service company could be about to enter a very crowded market.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: Diligent
Duration: 1'57"
06:56
Delegat's expects sales in Britain and Europe to stabilise
BODY:
Delegat's is expecting sales volumes in Britain and Europe will stablise by year's end, after falling since 2010, when it sold nearly a million cases there.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: Delegat
Duration: 2'38"
06:58
Morning markets for 5 March 2015
BODY:
The Dow Jones Index is down 89 points to 18,114.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: markets
Duration: 50"
07:07
Sports News for 5 March 2015
BODY:
An update from the team at RNZ Sport.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 2'02"
07:11
Hager reveals NZ spies on neighbours,
BODY:
The investigative journalist, Nicky Hager says New Zealand is spying on its Pacific neighbours on a scale never seen before.
Topics: politics, Pacific
Regions:
Tags: spying, GCSB
Duration: 6'38"
07:17
Labour on government spying on pacific neighbours
BODY:
The Prime Minister, John Key, declined to be interviewed this morning.
Topics: politics, Pacific
Regions:
Tags: spying, GCSB
Duration: 4'01"
07:22
Customs wants power to demand passwords for phones and laptops
BODY:
Customs wants new powers to allow it to demand travellers' give them their cellphone and laptop passwords.
Topics: law
Regions:
Tags: Customs, passwords
Duration: 3'21"
07:26
Australia warns of consequences for executions
BODY:
Barring a last minute act of clemency, Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran will be excecuted by firing squad.
Topics:
Regions:
Tags: Australia, Bali Nine
Duration: 3'47"
07:29
Winston Peters launches campaign for Northland
BODY:
Winston Peters is adamant he doesn't need Labour's help to topple National in the Northland by-election.
Topics: politics
Regions:
Tags: Winston Peters, Northland by-election
Duration: 4'11"
07:37
Consumers slow to seek out better power prices
BODY:
Consumer advocates are adamant it's worth shopping around for better power deals despite evidence suggesting New Zealanders are happy to let the retailers come to them.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: electricity pricing, Electricity Authority's survey
Duration: 3'15"
07:41
Barker's Team Nika signing doesn't mean he's leaving team NZ
BODY:
A yachting commentator says Dean Barker signing on to race with a Russian crew in this month's RC44 series doesn't mean he's leaving Team New Zealand.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags: Dean Barker, Team New Zealand
Duration: 3'07"
07:44
Calls for an independent commission to review criminal cases.
BODY:
The Privy Council's decision to quash the convictions of Teina Pora has sparked fresh calls for an independent commission to review criminal cases.
Topics: law, crime
Regions:
Tags: Teina Pora, independent commission
Duration: 3'33"
07:48
Attorneys for Boston Marathon bomber say "it was him"
BODY:
Attorneys for the accused Boston Marathon bomber opened his trial on Wednesday with a stunning statement of their client's guilt: "It was him."
Topics:
Regions:
Tags: USA, Boston Marathon bomber
Duration: 3'53"
07:54
Students fight over flats in Wellington
BODY:
Wellington students say a surge in their numbers is making the flatting market so competitive they are being left homeless.
Topics: housing, education
Regions: Wellington Region
Tags: flatting, Wellington, student living
Duration: 3'15"
07:57
Te Matatini kicks off in Christchurch
BODY:
The national kapa haka contest, Te Matatini, gets underway in Christchurch this morning.
Topics: te ao Māori
Regions:
Tags: kapa haka, contest, Te Matatini
Duration: 2'19"
08:07
Sports News for 5 March 2015
BODY:
An update from the team at RNZ Sport.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 2'02"
08:11
Analyst says Govt must have plan in place
BODY:
The New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager says New Zealand is increasing its surveillance on its Pacific neighbours, and passing the metadata straight onto United States authorities.
Topics: politics, Pacific
Regions:
Tags: spying, GCSB
Duration: 6'34"
08:18
Snowden's lawyer says he wants to go home
BODY:
More on whistleblower Edward Snowden. Snowden's lawyer says his client wants to leave Russia and return to the United States.
Topics:
Regions:
Tags: Edward Snowden, USA, spying
Duration: 3'30"
08:22
Akl Council role deserving of salary rises - councillor
BODY:
As the Government prepares to cap MPs' salary increases, Auckland's Mayor Len Brown has pledged to do the same for his councillors.
Topics: politics
Regions: Auckland Region
Tags: councillors salary
Duration: 4'23"
08:28
Markets Update for 5 March 2015
BODY:
A brief update of movements in the financial sector.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: markets
Duration: 1'00"
08:34
Struggle to secure NZ residency for Fijian workers
BODY:
Three Fijian forestry workers who are also volunteer firefighters are struggling to gain residency despite having lived in New Zealand for 10 years.
Topics: refugees and migrants
Regions:
Tags: residency
Duration: 3'18"
08:38
Napier mayor calls for halt to amalgamation process
BODY:
Napier's mayor is livid with the the Local Government Commission for distributing what he calls an 'erroneous pro-amalgamation' pamphlet.
Topics: politics
Regions: Hawkes Bay
Tags: Local Government Commission, supercity
Duration: 4'09"
08:42
Chch English language schools far from recovered
BODY:
Four years after the Christchurch earthquakes, English language student numbers are still only just over half what they were before the 2011 quake.
Topics: Canterbury earthquakes, education
Regions: Canterbury
Tags: international students
Duration: 3'49"
08:46
Te Manu Korihi News for 5 March 2015
BODY:
A Canterbury kapa haka team performing at Te Matatini - the national Māori cultural festival in Christchurch - says it's under extra pressure to perform but at the same time are confident about having a "home town" advantage. The Prime Minister, John Key, has avoided responding directly to an idea by the Māori Party, which is calling for an inquiry into the justice system for what it says is insititutional racism. A busines owned by the King Country iwi Ngati Manipoto has made yet another profit, making almost three-quarters of a million dollars last year. A Ruapehu says since it was included in the Whanganui River Deed of Settlement, it now has a better relationship with its kinfolk and the tribal entity that helps to look after the river.
Topics: te ao Māori
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 3'25"
08:52
Scientists develop anti aging chocolate
BODY:
Scientists are claiming to have developed a guilt free chocolate that drastically improves the appearance of wrinkles and sagging skin.
Topics: science, technology
Regions:
Tags: chocolate, Esthechoc
Duration: 5'27"
=SHOW NOTES=
===9:06 AM. | Nine To Noon===
=DESCRIPTION=
Current affairs and topics of interest, including: 10:45 The Families, by Vincent O'Sullivan, read by Jessica Robinson (2 of 3, RNZ)
=AUDIO=
09:10
Is NZ spying our Pacific neighbours?
BODY:
Dr Steven Ratuva a Fijian academic, and the director of Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury. Mike Field is Nine to Noon's Pacific correspondent.
Topics: politics, Pacific
Regions:
Tags: spying in the Pacific, spying
Duration: 20'01"
09:34
Are we heading towards a cashless society?
BODY:
The head of the Australian National University's School of Economics, Professor Rabee Tourkey believes physical cash will be phased out within a decade. He says it will likely be replaced by a government issued digital currency, similar to bitcoin, but fully centralised.
Topics: business, money
Regions:
Tags: cash, bitcoin, electronic currency, cryptocurrency
Duration: 16'20"
09:50
UK correspondent Kate Adie
BODY:
The unmasking of Islamic State militant "Jihadi John". Child abuse investigations.
Topics:
Regions:
Tags: UK, Islamic State
Duration: 8'09"
10:08
The women of Bletchley Park: WW2 Codebreakers
BODY:
The story of World War Two code breaker Alan Turing has just been told in the film The Imitation Game. But what the film misses, is the story of the thousands of women who also worked at Bletchley Park - the hub of Britain's most secret organisation, where German, Japanese and Italian encrypted messages were deciphered. Six thousand women worked at Bletchley Park during the war, many of them operating the code-cracking machines developed there. They were forbidden to talk about their war work, and many went for decades without speaking of it. Charlotte Webb was one of them. Now 91, she speaks with Kathryn Ryan about her years working at Bletchley Park, along with historian Tessa Dunlop, who's written a new book The Bletchley Girls. War, secrecy, love and loss: the women of Bletchley Park tell their story.
EXTENDED BODY:
The story of World War Two code breaker Alan Turing has just been told in the film The Imitation Game. But what the film misses, is the story of the thousands of women who also worked at Bletchley Park - the hub of Britain's most secret organisation, where German, Japanese and Italian encrypted messages were deciphered. Six thousand women worked at Bletchley Park during the war, many of them operating the code-cracking machines developed there. They were forbidden to talk about their war work, and many went for decades without speaking of it. Charlotte Webb was one of them. Now 91, she speaks with Kathryn Ryan about her years working at Bletchley Park, along with historian Tessa Dunlop, who's written a new book The Bletchley Girls. War, secrecy, love and loss: the women of Bletchley Park tell their story.
Topics: history
Regions:
Tags: Bletchley Park; WW2; Enigma, Alan Turing
Duration: 31'02"
10:39
Book review: 'Blood, Wine and Chocolate' by Julie Thomas
BODY:
Published by HarperCollins NZ. Reviewed by Rae McGregor.
Topics: books
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 4'38"
11:06
New Technology with Paul Matthews
BODY:
Paul Matthews talks about digital technology in the school curriculum and how computing is taught.
Topics: technology
Regions:
Tags: digital technology
Duration: 15'36"
11:25
Setting kids up to avoid financial disasters as adults
BODY:
Money coach Sarah McMurray discusses how to set your kids up to avoid financial disasters as adults, careers, study and money management.
Topics: money
Regions:
Tags: financial literacy, parenting, Sarah McMurray
Duration: 23'59"
11:49
TV Reviewer, Lara Strongman
BODY:
Lara Strongman critiques Fortitude, a crime drama set in the Arctic as well as the Christchurch quake documentary The Day That Changed My Life.
Topics: arts
Regions:
Tags: television
Duration: 10'14"
=SHOW NOTES=
09:05 Is New Zealand spying our Pacific neighbours?
Dr Steven Ratuva is a Fijian academic, and the director of Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury; and Mike Field is Nine to Noon's Pacific correspondent.
09:30 Are we heading towards a cashless society?
The head of the Australian National University's School of Economics, Professor Rabee Tourkey believes physical cash will be phased out within a decade. He says it will likely be replaced by a government issued digital currency, similar to bitcoin, but fully centralised.
09:45 UK correspondent Kate Adie
UK correspondent Kate Adie discusses the identification of Islamic State's Jihadi John, as well as a report into the Oxford child abuse case which highlights the indifferent attitude of authorities.
10:05 The women of Bletchley Park: WW2 Codebreakers
The story of World War Two code breaker Alan Turing has just been told in the film The Imitation Game. But what the film misses, is the story of the thousands of women who also worked at Bletchley Park – the hub of Britain’s most secret organisation, where German, Japanese and Italian encrypted messages were deciphered.
Six thousand women worked at Bletchley Park during the war, many of them operating the code-cracking machines developed there. They were forbidden to talk about their war work, and many went for decades without speaking of it.
Charlotte Webb was one of them. Now 91, she speaks with Kathryn Ryan about her years working at Bletchley Park, along with historian Tessa Dunlop, who’s written a new book The Bletchley Girls. War, secrecy, love and loss: the women of Bletchley Park tell their story.
10:30 Book review: 'Blood, Wine and Chocolate' by Julie Thomas
Published by HarperCollins NZ. Reviewed by Rae McGregor.
10:45 The Reading: 'The Families' by Vincent O'Sullivan
The title story from Vincent O'Sullivan's recent short story collection, The Families, published by Victoria University Press. Read by Jessica Robinson. (Part 2 of 3, RNZ)
11:05 New Technology with Paul Matthews
Paul Matthews talks about digital technology in the school curriculum and how computing is taught.
11:30 Setting kids up to avoid financial disasters as adults
Money coach Sarah McMurray discusses how to set your kids up to avoid financial disasters as adults, careers, study and money management.
11:45 TV Reviewer, Lara Strongman
Lara Strongman critiques Fortitude, a crime drama set in the Arctic as well as the Christchurch quake documentary The Day That Changed My Life.
=PLAYLIST=
Artist: Louis Armstrong
Song: You’re the Top
Composer: Porter
Album:
Label: Verve
Time: 09:10
Artist: The Phoenix Foundation
Song: Flock of Hearts
Composer: The Phoenix Foundation
Album: Buffalo (2010)
Label: EMI
Time: 09:30
Artist: Emiliana Torrini
Song: Big Jumps
Composer: Torrini
Album: Me and Armini
Label: Rough Trade
Time: 10:06
Artist: Che Fu
Song: Fade Away
Composer: Che Ness
Album:
Label: Sony
Time: 11:22
===Noon | Midday Report===
=DESCRIPTION=
Radio New Zealand news, followed by updates and reports until 1.00pm, including: 12:16 Business News 12:26 Sport 12:34 Rural News 12:43 Worldwatch
=AUDIO=
12:00
Midday News for 5 March 2015
BODY:
The legality of newly revealed mass surveillance by New Zealand is questioned and fewer Māori and Pasifika school leavers are getting UE.
Topics: education
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 15'36"
12:18
NZ dollar breaks records against the Euro and Australian
BODY:
The New Zealand dollar is having a record-breaking day, reaching new highs against the euro and Australian dollar.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 1'26"
12:20
Briscoe's beats its own forecast with lift in annual net profit
BODY:
Briscoe Group has lifted its annual net profit by more than 17 percent to a record, beating its own forecast, as sales rose and profit margins expanded.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 1'11"
12:23
Ernst & Young: customs law changes miss the mark for business
BODY:
The accountancy firm, Ernst & Young, says the proposals to change customs laws have missed the mark and don't go far enough to help New Zealand businesses and facilitate international trade.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 1'24"
12:24
Electricity Authority to look at electric cars
BODY:
The Electricity Authority says New Zealand is well-placed to transition to electric cars, with an abundance of relatively low-cost renewable energy options available to power them.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 1'15"
12:25
Midday markets for 5 March 2015
BODY:
The latest from the markets.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 2'13"
12:27
Midday Sports News for 5 March 2015
BODY:
Australia's impressive 275-run win over Afghanistan at the Cricket World Cup.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 2'49"
12:35
Midday Rural News for 5 March 2015
BODY:
News from the rural and farming sectors.
Topics: rural
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 7'05"
=SHOW NOTES=
===1:06 PM. | Afternoons===
=DESCRIPTION=
Information and debate, people and places around NZ
=AUDIO=
13:10
Your Song - Slice Of Heaven
BODY:
Vicki Parry of Auckland has chosen Slice Of Heaven by Dave Dobbyn.
Topics:
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 12'48"
13:20
Our New Zealand A to Z - Racing Clubs
BODY:
This week we look at the racing industry and talk to Chris Rowe from Canterbury Jockey Club, Tom Jamieson from Otaki Māori Racing Club and Cameron George from Auckland Racing Club.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags: horse racing
Duration: 39'49"
14:10
WW1 commemoration in the Coromandel
BODY:
A Memorial Forest is being established in the Coromandel to commemorate World War one. 18,166 trees will be planted in total - that's one tree for each New Zealander killed in battle.
Topics: history, life and society
Regions: Waikato
Tags: Coromandel, commemoration, WW1 centenary
Duration: 6'33"
14:20
Pulp - Florian Habicht
BODY:
Kiwi film director, Florian Habicht, talks about Pulp: A Film about Life, Death and Supermarkets. It's already screened in 50 international film festivals, won awards and praise around the world, and now finally Pulp is being released here in New Zealand.
Topics: arts
Regions:
Tags: Pulp, New Zealand film
Duration: 18'19"
14:50
Feature album - Listen To Me: Buddy Holly
BODY:
Today's feature album is Listen To Me a tribute to Buddy Holly.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags: Buddy Holly
Duration: 11'02"
15:10
The Expats
BODY:
This week we talk to Graham Duggan who's working for the Red Cross in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Topics:
Regions:
Tags: Papua New Guinea
Duration: 14'54"
15:45
The Panel pre-show for 5 March 2015
BODY:
Your feedback, and a preview of the guests and topics on The Panel.
Topics:
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 13'51"
21:46
Eagle Rays - An Inner City Wildlife Spectacle
BODY:
Every summer, eagle rays and stingrays hang out around Wellington's waterfront, feeding, mating and enthralling passers-by
EXTENDED BODY:
By Alison Ballance
It’s in the middle of our capital city, but Frank Kitt’s lagoon on the Wellington waterfront is home to a remarkable marine wildlife spectacle, with up to a dozen eagle rays congregating in the lagoon during summer.
“We have three common rays in New Zealand,” says NIWA shark expert Malcolm Francis. “Two of them are stingrays, the short-tailed and long-tailed stingrays and there’s the eagle ray. Eagle rays are quite easy to identify – they have pointed wings and swim by flapping their wings up and down. The stingrays have more rounded wings, and they swim by undulating the wings.”
So, just remember that eagle rays flap like a bird, while stingrays undulate.
“They’re quite broad in their dietary requirements,” says Tim Riding, a marine biologist with the Ministry for Primary Industries. “They’ll eat crabs and bivalves, and they’ll eat them off the rocks or dig them out of the sediment in estuaries and harbours but they’re also detritivores, and they’ll consume things like dead kahawai and other dead stuff floating around, so quite opportunistic.”
Malcolm adds that “in a lot of the northern harbours, where there’s a large area of sand flats, you can see at low tide that they’ve excavated pits that are about 30 cm across. And that they do that by taking in water from the top of their head, through little holes called spiracles at are behind the eyes, and they jet that out through the gills that are on the underside of the body. And that just creates a water flow that winnows away the sand, and exposes any shellfish or other invertebrates that are sitting in the mud.”
Tim carried out research for his Master’s degree tracking eagle rays in small harbours on Northland. He wanted to find out how the rays navigate in these shallow, narrow and often very muddy or sandy water bodies, where visual cues wouldn’t work. He decided that the sharks were using a “rheotactic response – so they were essentially orientating to water flows, coming into the estuaries on incoming tides and leaving on the outgoing tide.”
Both eagle rays and stingrays frequent the Wellington waterfront, but it’s usually only eagle rays that come into Frank Kitts lagoon. The eagle rays seem to arrive in October or November, and stay in the area until the water begins to cool in about April. They have been seen feeding, and also mating. It is not known where the eagle rays go in winter. Genetic studies show that the population of short-tailed stingrays in northern New Zealand is distinct from the population around the lower North island and Marlborough Sounds.
The largest eagle rays that Tim has seen had a wing span of 1.5 metres, while Malcolm comments that “historically, short-and long-tailed stingrays have been recorded at up to 4 metres long, including the tail. Those animals were massive, presumably decades old although we don’t know how long they live for. We don’t see those big old animals anymore, so we’ve probably removed them from the population by catching them, particularly in nets. It’s a bit of a concern, that the smaller rays just don’t get an opportunity to become big old rays anymore.”
Orcas, dolphins and hammerhead sharks are known to hunt rays. As a defence mechanism rays have a barb at the base of their tail, which is covered with proteinaceous slime. If a ray feels threatened by a shadow from above it will strike with the barb, and if the barb punctures the skin of a human it can cause an unpleasant wound. However, Malcolm is quick to point out that rays are not aggressive and only do this in self-defence. Tim suggests a good way to avoid accidentally standing on a ray in shallow murky water is to shuffle rather than walk.
Topics: environment
Regions:
Tags: eagle rays, stingrays, rays, sharks, wildlife, Frank Kitts Lagoon
Duration: 14'22"
=SHOW NOTES=
1:10 Your Song
Slice Of Heaven by Dave Dobbyn. Chosen by Vicki Parry of Auckland
1:20 Our New Zealand A to Z - Racing Clubs
Chris Rowe from Canterbury Jockey Club
Tom Jamieson from Otaki Māori Racing Club
Cameron George from Auckland Racing Club
2:10 WW1 commemoration in the Coromandel
A Memorial Forest is being established in the Coromandel to commemorate World War one. 18,166 trees will be planted in total - that's one tree for each New Zealander killed in battle
2:20 Pulp - Florian Habicht
Kiwi film director, Florian Habicht, talks about Pulp: A Film about Life, Death and Supermarkets. It's already screened in 50 international film festivals, won awards and praise around the world - and now finally Pulp is being released here in New Zealand.
2:30 Festival Report - Justin Gregory
Justin reviews the Auckland Arts Festival with help from Nick Atkinson and Paul Bushnell
2:45 Feature album
Listen To Me: Buddy Holly [Tribute]
3:10 The Expats
This week we talk to Graham Duggan who's working for the Red Cross in the highlands of Papua New Guinea
3:20 The Man Who Changed Parenting - BBC Witness
Baby and Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock sold half a million copies just six months after its publication in 1946. Witness hears from Lynn Bloom, a friend and biographer of the famous paediatrician
3:35 Eagle Rays - Alison Ballance
It's in the middle of our capital city, but Frank Kitt's lagoon on the Wellington waterfront is home to a remarkable marine wildlife spectacle. Alison Ballance joins NIWA shark expert Malcolm Francis and Tim Riding, a marine biologist with the Ministry of Primary Industries, to celebrate Seaweek by finding out more about the eagle rays that congregate in the lagoon during summer
Stories from Our Changing World.
3:45 The Panel Pre-Show
With Jim Mora, Zara Potts, Garry Moore and Lynda Hallinan
MUSIC DETAILS: AFTERNOONS/PANEL - Thursday 5 March
YOUR SONG:
ARTIST: Dave Dobbyn
TITLE: Slice Of Heaven
COMP: Dobbyn
ALBUM: The Collection
LABEL: FESTIVAL 307332
A to Z:
ARTIST: The Squires
TITLE: Bonecrusher
COMP: The Squires
ALBUM: Tribute To A Champion
LABEL: CRUSHER CR 001
ARTIST: Patea Māori Club
TITLE: Poi E
COMP: Patea Māori Club
ALBUM: Our Land Our Music
LABEL: EMI 471054
ARTIST: Rod Derret
TITLE: Rugby Racing and Beer
COMP: Derret
ALBUM: Rod Derret Sings
LABEL: REGAL / HMV
2PM STORIES:
ARTIST: Pulp
TITLE: Common People
COMP: Banks,Cocker,Doyle,Mackey,Senior
ALBUM: Different Class
LABEL: ISLAND 524165
ARTIST: Pulp
TITLE: Mis-Shapes
COMP: Banks,Cocker,Doyle,Mackey,Senior,Webber
ALBUM: Different Class
LABEL: ISLAND 524165
FEATURE ALBUM:
ARTIST: Lyle Lovett
TITLE: Well All Right
COMP: Holly
ALBUM: Listen To Me: Buddy Holly [Tribute]
LABEL: SONGMASTERS 561836
ARTIST: Jackson Browne
TITLE: True Love Ways
COMP: Holly
ALBUM: Listen To Me: Buddy Holly [Tribute]
LABEL: SONGMASTERS 561836
ARTIST: Zooey Deschanel
TITLE: Its So Easy
COMP: Holly
ALBUM: Listen To Me: Buddy Holly [Tribute]
LABEL: SONGMASTERS 561836
ARTIST: Chris Isaak
TITLE: Waiting Hoping
COMP: Holly
ALBUM: Listen To Me: Buddy Holly [Tribute]
LABEL: SONGMASTERS 561836 TIST
PANEL HALF TIME:
ARTIST: Bernard Cribbins
TITLE: Right Said Fred
COMP: Dicks/Rudge
ALBUM: The Very Best Of Bernard Cribbins
LABEL: EMI 578658
===4:06 PM. | The Panel===
=DESCRIPTION=
An hour of discussion featuring a range of panellists from right along the opinion spectrum (RNZ)
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15:45
The Panel pre-show for 5 March 2015
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Your feedback, and a preview of the guests and topics on The Panel.
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Duration: 13'51"
16:05
The Panel with Garry Moore and Linda Hallinan (Part 1)
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Spying on Pacific neighbours, Bali executions, sex education and vulnerability.
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Duration: 24'21"
16:08
Intro
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What the panelists Garry Moore and Linda Hallinan have been up to.
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Duration: 3'38"
16:11
GCSB spying on Pacific neighbours
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NZ spying on other Pacific nations. Is it something to worry about or do we accept that "everyone spies on everyone"?
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Duration: 3'00"
16:14
Bali executions
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The Indonesian authorities have put on a show of force when transferring two of the Bali 9 drug smugglers to the place they'll be put to death.
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Duration: 4'35"
16:20
Sex education and vulnerabilty
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Sex education for primary age children. We talk to Dr Elspeth McInnes of the University of South Australia about the link between sex education and the dark agenda of some of those encouraging sex education.
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Duration: 13'00"
16:35
Tea break laws
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The tea break law came into effect today, apparently.
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Duration: 3'57"
16:35
The Panel with Garry Moore and Linda Hallinan (Part 2)
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Tea breaks, Panel says, Small community fears losing local cops, Being nice, Sniffer dog search at school, Council pay packets.
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Duration: 25'59"
16:37
Panel says
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What's on the minds of panelists Linda Hallinan and Garry Moore.
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Duration: 6'10"
16:45
Small community fears losing local cops
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The chair of the Waihi Beach Community Board Allan Sole joins the Panel to talk about the spectre of losing their two local police officers.
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Regions: Waikato
Tags: New Zealand Police
Duration: 6'19"
16:50
Being nice
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Do nice guys really come last?
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Duration: 3'03"
16:54
Sniffer dog seach at school
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Breaches have been identified in a random drug search at Waitaki Boys' High School.
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Duration: 1'52"
16:56
Call for caps on pay now at Council level
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The mayor of Auckland Len Brown is calling for councillors salaries to be capped. He's joining the chorus of MPs calling on capping their pay.
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Duration: 4'35"
17:15
New rules could push up interest rates for property investors
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Property investors are being targeted with new lending rules by the Reserve Bank which might push up interest rates for landlords, or even increase the supply of homes.
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Duration: 4'51"
=SHOW NOTES=
===5:00 PM. | Checkpoint===
=DESCRIPTION=
Radio New Zealand's two-hour news and current affairs programme
=AUDIO=
17:00
Checkpoint Top Stories for Thursday 5 March 2015
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PM denies illegal mass spying on NZ citizens; Analysis from our political editor; New rules could push up interest rates for property investors; French tourist sentenced and to pay reparation after head on crash; Government takes action on South Island roads; Tonga PM says spying is a breach of trust but he's relaxed about it; Carmel Sepuloni's mother pleads guilty to benefit fraud.
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Duration: 23'18"
17:08
PM denies illegal mass spying on NZ citizens
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The Prime Minister has come out fighting against further claims of illegal mass surveillance by New Zealand spy agencies.
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Duration: 3'39"
17:12
Analysis from our political editor
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RNZ Political Editor Brent Edwards was at the Prime Minister's new conference in Auckland.
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Duration: 2'42"
17:20
French tourist sentenced and pay reparation after head on crash
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A French tourist convicted for dangerous driving has been ordered to pay just over 18-thousand dollars in reparation to two women seriously injured when the car he was driving on the wrong side of the road hit their vehicle.
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Duration: 3'33"
17:25
Government takes action on South Island roads
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Prompted by the fear surrounding tourist drivers on popular roads, the Government today moved to fast-track more rumble strips and road signs.
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Duration: 2'55"
17:35
Today's market update
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From New Zealand's markets today, the currency's had a record-breaking day.
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Duration: 2'38"
17:38
Tonga PM: spying is a breach of trust but is relaxed about it
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The Prime Ministers of Tonga and Samoa say they don't know what to make of New Zealand's mass surveillance of them, but they have more urgent things to worry about.
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Tags: Tonga, Samoa
Duration: 3'25"
17:41
Carmel Sepuloni's mother pleads guilty to benefit fraud
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The mother of the Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni and her partner have been convicted of illegally receiving benefits worth about 100-thousand dollars.
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Duration: 1'51"
17:45
Ferguson police force a "racist system"
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The US investigation into the Ferguson police force has found a racist system that created a toxic atmosphere which finally blew after teenager Micheal Brown was shot.
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Duration: 5'07"
17:50
US ambassador to South Korea attacked
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The United States ambassador to South Korea has been left bleeding from his face and hand after being attacked by a man weilding a razor blade in Seoul.
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Duration: 2'31"
17:53
Calls to change way NZ measures air polloution
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The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment says the way New Zealand measures air pollution is outdated and out of line with the developed world.
Topics: environment
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Duration: 2'32"
17:54
Livestock and human DNA 'found' on Lundy shirt
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A jury has heard low levels of livestock DNA were found on murder-accused Mark Lundy's polo shirt, as well as evidence of human DNA.
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Duration: 2'26"
17:55
Strict rules for Te Matatini kai
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In an effort to curb obesity and type-2 diabetes, food vendors at Te Matatini have been made to serve up healthy kai.
Topics: te ao Māori
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Duration: 2'52"
18:08
Sports news for 5 March 2015
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A big announcement from the Wellington Phoenix.
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Duration: 3'20"
18:17
Pacific snooping alarms Internet lobbyists
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New Zealanders holidaying in the Pacific are being warned to beware of spies.
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Duration: 5'05"
18:18
Government takes action on South Island roads
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Widespread fear surrounding foreign drivers has forced the Government to fast-track installing safety measures on popular tourist roads.
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Tags: foreign drivers, New Zealand
Duration: 2'38"
18:21
Car hire company screens foreign drivers
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A Queenstown car hire company has developed a computer app to screen foreign drivers on their road knowledge.
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Duration: 3'38"
18:25
Property investors face new lending restrictions
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Property investors are being targeted with new lending restrictions by the Reserve Bank.
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Duration: 3'57"
18:28
100 people battle suspicious Northland fire
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Around 100 people are battling a suspicious fire that's destroyed more than 2-hundred hectares of pine forest south of Dargaville.
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Tags: Dargaville
Duration: 3'37"
18:41
Worries about working on truck that crushed man - union
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A union says staff at EnviroWaste told the company of worries about working alone on recycling trucks before one of them was crushed and died this week.
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Duration: 3'07"
18:44
Cancer risk higher for men with ancestors who ploughed
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Men whose ancestors used ploughs are more likely to get cancer than women with the same ancestors.
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Duration: 4'51"
18:47
Te Manu Korihi News for 5 March 2015
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In an effort to curb obesity and type-2 diabetes food, vendors at Te Matatini have been made to serve up healthy kai; Part of Northland's Aupouri forest has been returned to local iwi by the Crown after leasing the land for almost half a century; In Australia, the Liberal Democrat senator, David Leyonhjelm, has come out against the Federal Government's push to recognise Indigenous people in the constitution.
Topics: te ao Māori
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Duration: 3'25"
=SHOW NOTES=
===7:06 PM. | Nights===
=DESCRIPTION=
Entertainment and information, including: 7:30 At the Movies with Simon Morris: Current film releases and film related topics (RNZ) 8:13 Windows on the World: International public radio features and documentaries 9:06 Our Changing World: Science and environment news from NZ and the world (RNZ)
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19:10
Wave Power
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Taranaki based technologist Derek Shadbolt has just returned from Hawaii where he has helped to deploy a N.Z. designed and built wave energy extractor in a test wave farm.
Topics: science, technology
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Tags: wave energy extractor, wave farm
Duration: 21'38"
20:42
Jazz
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Jivester, editor and publisher Fergus Barrowman on the sizzle and pop of a snazzy beat... Vijay Iyer's brilliant new album 'Break Stuff'.
Topics: music, arts
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Duration: 20'18"
20:59
Conundrum Clue 7
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Listen tomorrow for the answer.
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Duration: 16"
21:59
Conundrum Clue 8
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Listen tomorrow for the answer.
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Duration: 20"
=SHOW NOTES=
7:10 Wave power
Taranaki-based technologist Derek Shotbolt has just returned from Hawaii where he has helped to deploy a New Zealand designed and built wave energy extractor in a test wave farm.
7:30 At the Movies
=SHOW NOTES=
=AUDIO=
19:30
At the Movies for 5 March 2015
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On At The Movies, Simon Morris reviews The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and previews a year packed with even more sequels. He also looks at a rare public-private partnership out to help the New Zealand film industry - the Vista Foundation.
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Simon Morris reviews The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and previews a year packed with even more sequels. He also looks at a rare public-private partnership out to help the New Zealand film industry - the Vista Foundation.
Topics: arts
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Tags: film
Duration: 23'40"
7:30 At the Movies
Films and movie business with Simon Morris.
8:10 Windows on the World
International public radio documentaries - visit the Windows on the World web page to find links to these documentaries.
8:40 Jazz
Jivester, editor and publisher Fergus Barrowman on the sizzle and pop of a snazzy beat... Vijay Iyer's brilliant new album 'Break Stuff'.
9:06 Our Changing World
=SHOW NOTES=
=AUDIO=
21:06
Tracking Rig Sharks
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Shark researcher Warrick Lyon has developed his own GPS tracking system so he can follow rig sharks in the murky waters of Pauatahanui Inlet
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By Alison Ballance
Tracking rig sharks in Pauatahanui Inlet is proving to be a difficult job at the best of times for shark researcher Warrick Lyon, let alone when the electronic tags keep getting ‘stolen’ off the sharks. I joined Warrick on a recent research trip into the estuary, and although it was only 8am he had already had an eventful morning.
“A fisherman caught my shark!” he told me as he picked me up from the boat ramp. “It was towing a GPS transmitter that tells me the location of the shark; the transmitter floats on the surface and there’s a 6-metre long nylon tether down to the shark. So the shark swims along the seafloor and that’s where they like to be, and the tag floats on the surface, and it was the tether between the two that the fisherman caught.”
To make matters worse, Warrick was actually talking to the fishers at the time!
As he describes in his Shark Tracker blog, the chances of this happening are incredibly small: ‘I’m guessing that there are between several hundred to several thousand rig sharks in Porirua Harbour during the spring and summer, so what are the chances that the ONE I have tagged gets caught? I’ll do some simple math for you it’s between 0.00002% and 0.000005%, that’s a pretty low. What made it even more unlikely was that I was talking to the fishers at the time, telling them about my research, and if they ever caught one of my tagged sharks could they please return the tag to me. Then one of them caught my rig shark.’
Warrick is a technician at NIWA and is carrying out research into rig sharks for a PhD at the University of Auckland. The first stage of his research is to find out how adult rig use Pauatahanui Inlet during the warmer summer months when they use the estuary as a breeding ground. To do this he has worked with NIWA’s Peter De Joux to develop an innovative electronic tracking system, which uses GPS and allows him to track individual sharks in real time. A system of routers around the estuary act as a smart network that transmit the location of the tag to a base computer sited in Mana, overlooking the estuary. GPS cannot transmit through water, yet rig sharks spend their lives on the bottom of the estuary looking for the mud crabs that make up most of their diet. The solution was to allow the tag to float on the surface. The tag transmits every 30-seconds, which provides a very detailed picture of what the sharks are doing.
Warrick’s research builds on previous work which has investigated the importance of Pauatahanui Inlet as a rig breeding ground. As part of this research NIWA’s Malcolm Francis used acoustic tags to study the broad-scale movement of juvenile rig in the estuary.
Rig is also known as spotted dogfish or spotted smoothhound. It is called gummy shark in Australia, and is commonly used in fish and chips under the name lemonfish.
Our Changing World has previously joined Malcolm Francis as he took genetic samples from rig in Pauatahanui Inlet to find out how the species is related to Australian gummy sharks.
You can follow Warrick's research on his blog, Facebook page or on Twitter.
SEAWEEK
Seaweek 2015 runs until 8 March. The theme this year is ‘Look beneath the surface – Papatai ō roto – Papatai ō raro’. There are events taking place around the country, and you can find more details on the Seaweek website.
TRACKING RIG SHARKS AUDIO:
Topics: environment, technology
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Tags: rig, sharks, spotted dogfish, GPS, electronic tagging, animal tracking, estuary
Duration: 15'16"
21:20
Giving up Smoking - How Good are E-cigarettes
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Chris Bullen describes a study comparing e-cigarettes with patches and placebos as tools to quit smoking
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by Ruth Beran
Researcher and public health doctor Associate Professor Chris Bullen from the University of Auckland, is supportive of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes). “If people are going to continue to use them for the nicotine and to prevent them relapsing back to smoking tobacco…that’s got to be a good thing,” he says.
The term e-cigarette is used to describe one of a vast range of devices that vaporise a solution of propylene glycol, vegetable oil and sometimes nicotine. “The official term that’s used increasingly [is] electronic nicotine delivery systems or ENDS,” says Bullen. With the spread of new products coming on the market people that do not necessarily use batteries or an integrated circuit, the terms being used is ANDS or alternative nicotine delivery systems. “Essentially what they are is something that looks vaguely like a cigarette that most of the time delivers nicotine in a vapour or aerosol form to people to inhale,” says Bullen.
E-cigarettes do not combust tobacco or produce smoke. “It only produces vapour when the user sucks on it and the vapour comes out of their mouth and then it vanishes almost instantaneously,” says Bullen. In this way, e-cigarettes provide a form of behavioural replacement, as they look like cigarettes.
“It really does remarkably replicate much of the behavioural characteristics of smoking a cigarette but without all the harms of combusted tobacco leaf and the 3 -4,000 other chemicals in that toxic cocktail which we know is one of the most dangerous products on the planet,” says Bullen.
E-cigarettes do not have 20-30 years of follow up studies for lung cancer or heart disease like tobacco cigarettes. However, Bullen believes that there is “almost certainly no doubt that these things are safer to individuals who use them than using a cigarette”.
Most people using these products are doing so to try and quit smoking or to cut down the number of cigarettes they smoke. “The evidence suggests about 6 or 7 out of 10 people who use them use them to cut down the number of cigarettes for their health or saving money because they usually work out to be cheaper than buying tobacco,” says Bullen. “About 3 or 4 out of 10 will use them to try and actually quit. Whether they succeed or not is another story.”
For example, a cigarette smoker who has tried e-cigarettes says: “Of all the options that I’ve tried (and I’ve tried patches, I’ve tried the nicotine inhalers) it’s easily …the most effective in terms of curbing your cravings and all of that sort of stuff.”
There are some considerations about the use of e-cigarettes though that also need to be looked at. For example, young people may take up smoking if exposed to e-cigarettes. “I think young people like to experiment with risky things,” says Bullen. “However the data that we’ve looked at from all around the world in a range of countries suggests that the numbers of children or adolescents who don’t smoke, who experiment with e-cigarettes and then go onto use them, is actually very, very small. It’s less than 1%.”
Bullen and his team conducted a randomised controlled trial called the ASCEND study looking at the effectiveness of e-cigarettes as a tool to quit smoking. The study was completed in mid 2013 and took 3 years to get underway and recruit about 660 participants from Auckland. The participants were all people who wanted to quit smoking who were heavy dependent smokers, each smoking on average about 20 cigarettes a day. People were randomised into three groups, one group received an e-cigarette with nicotine, another group received an identical e-cigarette that didn’t deliver nicotine, ie it was a placebo, and the third group received nicotine patches, the gold standard for people who want to quit smoking.
The study replicated the real world of obtaining these products. “So the people who were randomised to the patches received a QUIT voucher which they had to take to a community pharmacy to get their patch,” says Bullen. Both e-cigarettes groups "had the products couriered to them with some instructions, just as if they were ordering them over the internet.” In New Zealand, buying e-cigarettes with nicotine can only be done on the internet. “Both groups were able to contact QUIT line for some behavioural support counselling if they wanted to do it. And about 40% of those in each arm did,” says Bullen.
The groups were followed up for six months, after receiving the product for three months. After six months people who said they’d quit smoking came in to have a carbon monoxide breath test. Carbon monoxide is present when smoking tobacco cigarettes but not present when using e-cigarettes. Bullen and his team found that “the proportions of people who had actually quit verified by carbon monoxide testing in all three arms was practically the same.” So the results were modest, showing about 5 to 10% of people successfully quitting smoking after six months which is a similar figure to someone using patches from the supermarket, and receiving no counselling.
According to Bullen, the immediate success rate from the study was quite dramatic for e-cigarettes, but then it tailed off and eventually all three arms of the study were similar. The success rate for the placebo e-cigarette was about 5% compared with about 8% with the nicotine e-cigarette group, but this figure was not statistically significant.
There was no difference in adverse health events between the two groups after six months.
“There was no evidence of any, at least medium term, adverse events,” says Bullen. “So I’m pretty confident they are certainly a safer product than smoking tobacco.”
A one-day symposium entitled “E-cigarettes: Opportunity or threat?” will be hosted by the University of Auckland’s Centre of Addiction Research and held at the University’s Business School at the City Campus on 12 March 2015. It is expected to be the first New Zealand gathering for stakeholders interested in e-cigarettes.
Topics: health, science, technology
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Tags: e-cigarettes, cigarettes, nicotine, patches, quit, smoking
Duration: 20'08"
21:34
Science of Complex Systems
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The Punaha Matatini is a new Centre of Research Excellence focusing on complex systems and networks.
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by Veronika Meduna Veronika.Meduna@radionz.co.nz
'We want to go right from the data through to how you make decisions about the way we manage the world around us.' _Shaun Hendy
Te Pūnaha Matatini, a new Centre of Research Excellence focusing on complex systems and networks, is taking the idea of multi-disciplinary research to a new level. Economists team up with ecologists, physicists explore questions in biology, and mathematicians worry about the health of the environment.
The centre’s director, Shaun Hendy, says Te Pūnaha Matatini literally means ‘a meeting place of many faces’, but he sees it as a metaphor for complexity. By bringing together researchers from a wide range of disciplines, he hopes the team will develop new approaches for transforming complex data into insights for making better decisions.
Essentially, is it about understanding networks – regardless of whether they play out in the environment, society or business. “Traditionally or economic models are either very macro and high level and don’t have a lot of detail in them, or they are very low level and very much about individual businesses. In between there’s a complex space where networks of businesses and people interact.”
Shaun Hendy has long been interested in networks and how they can be applied in innovation, and to that end he has worked with economists. “But then I realised that the people who have the best understanding of networks are ecologists because they’ve had to grapple with ecological networks for a long time and have developed a deep understanding of networks. That’s only recently been applied to economics.”
The approach Te Pūnaha Matatini investigators take is to go beyond data mining. “That’s only one aspect,” says Shaun Hendy. “Then we want to build models that explain the data and then, beyond the models, the goal is to use those models to make decisions.”
The projects already underway include a collaboration with Predator-free New Zealand, and University of Canterbury mathematician Michael Plank is interested in exploring the impacts of commercial fishing on marine ecosystem. To that end, he is teaming up with University of Auckland anthropologist Melinda Allen. “We already have ecological models of population dynamics of fish species today, but anthropologists have data on historical catches from middens. We can use those to test our theories and models. It’s not something you can replicate now because fishing has had a huge effect on the state of the ocean and the state of the fish populations, but this data gives us a window into how it used to be and what it was like before there was this massive fishing pressure.”
Tava Olsen, at the University of Auckland’s business school, is exploring innovations in supply chain systems, or value chains. “It’s not just about moving goods from here to there but sometimes it’s more virtual when we’re thinking about services.”
For University of Auckland cosmologist Richard Easther, the interest lies in developing new ways of using big data well to help make policy decisions. “As a physicist, I’m looking for opportunities to apply the technology of physics to problems that aren’t physics.”
He says some of the deep questions that we’ll have to answer in the future may not come from physics but more likely from biology and social science.
“Understanding cities for instance. Cities are systems that are built out of small pieces but behave in large and complex ways. You’re never going to have a physical theory of the city that’s the same as the physical theory of an atom, but the style of thinking that physicists have has applications outside of physics.”
For Shaun Hendy, the ultimate goal is for New Zealand to make its own decisions.
'I’d like to think that we were making decisions that are very specific to ourselves, based on our understanding of our unique location in the world, our population, our history, who we are - and having that really inform our decision making.'
Topics: science, economy, business, environment
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Tags: multi-disciplinary research, biosphere, complex networks, models
Duration: 12'17"
21:46
Eagle Rays - An Inner City Wildlife Spectacle
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Every summer, eagle rays and stingrays hang out around Wellington's waterfront, feeding, mating and enthralling passers-by
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By Alison Ballance
It’s in the middle of our capital city, but Frank Kitt’s lagoon on the Wellington waterfront is home to a remarkable marine wildlife spectacle, with up to a dozen eagle rays congregating in the lagoon during summer.
“We have three common rays in New Zealand,” says NIWA shark expert Malcolm Francis. “Two of them are stingrays, the short-tailed and long-tailed stingrays and there’s the eagle ray. Eagle rays are quite easy to identify – they have pointed wings and swim by flapping their wings up and down. The stingrays have more rounded wings, and they swim by undulating the wings.”
So, just remember that eagle rays flap like a bird, while stingrays undulate.
“They’re quite broad in their dietary requirements,” says Tim Riding, a marine biologist with the Ministry for Primary Industries. “They’ll eat crabs and bivalves, and they’ll eat them off the rocks or dig them out of the sediment in estuaries and harbours but they’re also detritivores, and they’ll consume things like dead kahawai and other dead stuff floating around, so quite opportunistic.”
Malcolm adds that “in a lot of the northern harbours, where there’s a large area of sand flats, you can see at low tide that they’ve excavated pits that are about 30 cm across. And that they do that by taking in water from the top of their head, through little holes called spiracles at are behind the eyes, and they jet that out through the gills that are on the underside of the body. And that just creates a water flow that winnows away the sand, and exposes any shellfish or other invertebrates that are sitting in the mud.”
Tim carried out research for his Master’s degree tracking eagle rays in small harbours on Northland. He wanted to find out how the rays navigate in these shallow, narrow and often very muddy or sandy water bodies, where visual cues wouldn’t work. He decided that the sharks were using a “rheotactic response – so they were essentially orientating to water flows, coming into the estuaries on incoming tides and leaving on the outgoing tide.”
Both eagle rays and stingrays frequent the Wellington waterfront, but it’s usually only eagle rays that come into Frank Kitts lagoon. The eagle rays seem to arrive in October or November, and stay in the area until the water begins to cool in about April. They have been seen feeding, and also mating. It is not known where the eagle rays go in winter. Genetic studies show that the population of short-tailed stingrays in northern New Zealand is distinct from the population around the lower North island and Marlborough Sounds.
The largest eagle rays that Tim has seen had a wing span of 1.5 metres, while Malcolm comments that “historically, short-and long-tailed stingrays have been recorded at up to 4 metres long, including the tail. Those animals were massive, presumably decades old although we don’t know how long they live for. We don’t see those big old animals anymore, so we’ve probably removed them from the population by catching them, particularly in nets. It’s a bit of a concern, that the smaller rays just don’t get an opportunity to become big old rays anymore.”
Orcas, dolphins and hammerhead sharks are known to hunt rays. As a defence mechanism rays have a barb at the base of their tail, which is covered with proteinaceous slime. If a ray feels threatened by a shadow from above it will strike with the barb, and if the barb punctures the skin of a human it can cause an unpleasant wound. However, Malcolm is quick to point out that rays are not aggressive and only do this in self-defence. Tim suggests a good way to avoid accidentally standing on a ray in shallow murky water is to shuffle rather than walk.
Topics: environment
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Tags: eagle rays, stingrays, rays, sharks, wildlife, Frank Kitts Lagoon
Duration: 14'22"
21:55
From the Archive: Ring of Fire Expedition
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Back in 2005, a team of marine biologists and geologists use a submersible to dive deep down to explore submarine volcanoes in the Kermadec Arc.
Topics: science
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Tags: submarine volcanoes, Kermadec Arc, black smokers, Ring of Fire
Duration: 23'18"
9:06 Our Changing World
Science and environment news from New Zealand and the world.
10:17 Late Edition
A review of the leading news from Morning Report, Nine to Noon, Afternoons and Checkpoint. Also hear the latest news from around the Pacific on Radio New Zealand International's Dateline Pacific.
11:06 Music 101 pocket edition
A contemporary music magazine with interviews and music from New Zealand and overseas artists, coverage of new releases, tours, live sessions, music festivals and events.
===10:00 PM. | Late Edition===
=DESCRIPTION=
Radio New Zealand news, including Dateline Pacific and the day's best interviews from Radio New Zealand National
===11:06 PM. | Music 101===
=DESCRIPTION=
Music, interviews, live performances, behind the scenes, industry issues, career profiles, new, back catalogue, undiscovered, greatest hits, tall tales - with a focus on NZ (RNZ)