Meet Alan Hart

Meet Alan Hart

What is your job title?

Fisheries biologist

What do you study and why is it important?

Deepwater fish, primarily the abundance of commercial deepwater species, but also interactions with other deepwater species and the deepwater habitat. Most of my work to date has involved helping estimate the population sizes of deepwater fish stocks for use in independent scientific advice on sustainable management.

I have particular interest in acoustic methods of measuring fish populations but dabble in trawl surveys, and have in the past been keen on egg and larval survey methods. I am interested in increasing the use of cameras as a sampling tool, especially in relation to acoustic mark identification, and this will be one of my focuses on this trip. Mark ID is a problem for acoustic methods as trawling to establish species composition is not only “intrusive” but can introduce bias due to poorly understood trawl catchability for many deepwater species. In addition I am branching out into habitat mapping using acoustic methods and hope to gain a better handle on that following this voyage.

What will you be doing on the Graveyard voyage?

Not entirely sure as this is my first seamounts voyage. I do know I am the fall guy for releasing a moored camera array on top of the Morgue seamount. This will be an exciting experiment for me and I look forward reviewing the footage when we recover the cameras at the end of the survey. I am hoping recovery is more successful that when I “released” a trawl on the top of the Zombie seamount last winter! My main tasks I believe will revolve around use of the towed camera systems. I will be analysing acoustic data we collect on this trip to investigate its use for habitat mapping so hope to be involved in that experiment on the trip and no doubt I will be roped into biological collection tasks at times. Also I have been trained up to use the SWATH multibeam system on the Tangaora and hope to get some opportunities to use that to map any seamounts we encounter that have not already been thoroughly surveyed previously.

Where were you educated?

First real education about the sea occurred after I left school and became a fishing deckhand on a stern trawler out of Nelson New Zealand for 2 years. We mainly fished for deepwater species in what turned out to be the pioneering period of the New Zealand deepwater fishery. I followed that with stints at Victoria University Wellington, and as a scientific observer on foreign fishing vessels, before joining the Fisheries Research Division of the Ministry of Fisheries (now NIWA).

How did you become interested in the ocean?

Living near the beach as a child and watching exotic French marine biologists on black and white television helped.

Do you get seasick? And if so, any tips on how not to?

Only if the boat smells of the rotten fish/diesel combo particularly strongly. Remedy: Stones Green Ginger Wine taken liberally.

What do you enjoy about your work?

Going to sea would be a highlight I think.

What are some of the challenges you face?

Gear failure, loosing gear entirely, explaining loss of gear to owner of gear, cleaning cabin at end of trip.

What have you learned/discovered? What do you hope to learn?

I have learnt that biological systems are very hard to measure and are always more complicated than you assume. I hope to see some good in situ footage from deepwater seamounts and to learn more about sea bed mapping and use of the multibeam SWATH system.

How do you spend your spare time?

Stones Green Ginger wine.