Pelorus Sound / Te Hoiere is the largest of the

sounds In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

which make up the

Marlborough Sounds The Marlborough Sounds are an extensive network of sea-drowned valleys at the northern end of the South Island of New Zealand. The Marlborough Sounds were created by a combination of land subsidence and rising sea levels. According to Māori m ...

at the north of the South Island,

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The Marlborough Sounds is a system of

drowned river valley A ria (; gl, ría) is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley. It is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea. Definitions Typically rias have a dendritic, treelike outline although they c ...

s, which were formed after the last ice age around 10,000 years ago. Pelorus Sound has a main channel which winds south from

Cook Strait Cook Strait ( mi, Te Moana-o-Raukawa) separates the North and South Islands of New Zealand. The strait connects the Tasman Sea on the northwest with the South Pacific Ocean on the southeast. It is wide at its narrowest point,McLintock, A H, ...

for about , between steeply sloped wooded hills, until it reached its head close to Havelock town. Pelorus has several major arms, notably Tennyson Inlet, Tawhitinui Reach,

Kenepuru Sound Kenepuru Sound is one of the larger of the Marlborough Sounds in the South Island of New Zealand. The drowned valley is an arm of Pelorus Sound / Te Hoiere, it runs for from the northeast to southwest, joining Pelorus Sound a quarter of the way ...

and the Crail/Clova/Beatrix Bay complex. Its shoreline runs for . Industry in Pelorus Sounds is based around

marine farming Mariculture or marine farming is a specialized branch of aquaculture (which includes freshwater aquaculture) involving the cultivation of marine organisms for food and other animal products, in enclosed sections of the open ocean ( offshore ma ...

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

forestry and some tourism. Private holiday homes are becoming more common. Most of the settled places are hard to reach overland, and are serviced by the ''Pelorus Express'', a

mail boat Mail boats or postal boats are a boat or ship used for the delivery of mail and sometimes transportation of goods, people and vehicles in communities where bodies of water commonly separate or separated settlements, towns or cities often where b ...

which does three different weekly runs from Havelock.''Sounds like a red-letter day afloat'' - ''

New Zealand Herald ''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation of all newspapers ...

'', Travel: NZ Special Issue, Tuesday 6 November 2007, Page D6

Maud Island Maud Island, also called Te Hoiere in the Māori language, is one of the larger islands in the Marlborough Sounds on the northern tip of the South Island of New Zealand, with a total area of . Fauna Maud Island is an important predator free natu ...

, originally called ''Te Hoiere'' in the

Māori language Māori (), or ('the Māori language'), also known as ('the language'), is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. Closely related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and ...

, is a island in the Pelorus Sounds. It is an important

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

to which only scientists and conservationists have access.

History

The local

iwi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...

(tribe) of the

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

of New Zealand is the

Ngāti Kuia Ngāti Kuia is a Māori iwi of the Northern South Island in New Zealand. They first settled in the Pelorus Sound / Te Hoiere, and later spread to the Marlborough Sounds, Nelson and Tasman districts to Taitapu on the West Coast, and as far south ...

. According to Ngāti Kuia

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...

, their founding father, a descendant of

Kupe Kupe ( ~1180-1320) was a legendary Polynesian explorer, navigator and great rangatira of Hawaiki, who is said to have been the first human to discover New Zealand. Whether Kupe existed historically is likely but difficult to confirm. He is g ...

, came to the South Island in his

waka Waka may refer to: Culture and language * Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand ** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe ** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe ** Waka taua, a Māori w ...

Te Hoiere. In 1642,

Abel Tasman Abel Janszoon Tasman (; 160310 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first known European explorer to reach New Z ...

sailed past

D'Urville Island D'Urville Island (), Māori language, Māori name ' ('red heavens look to the south'), is an island in the Marlborough Sounds along the northern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It was named after the France, French List of explorers, ...

. French and Russian explorers followed and in the 1770s Captain

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

arrived. In 1838, Philip Chetwode in command of the , , carried out the first survey of Pelorus Sound. The sound was named in honour of this survey. A pelorus was a navigational instrument used on sailing ships. The instrument, in turn, was named after the pilot for

Hannibal Hannibal (; xpu, 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋, ''Ḥannibaʿl''; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Puni ...

, circa 203 BC. In 1864, gold was discovered in the Wakamarina Valley and, for a brief time, Havelock became a boom town as several thousand prospectors flooded the area.McLintock A. H. (1966
''Marlborough Provence and Provincial District''
An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, updated 18-Sep-2007. In 1865, the first timber mill started at Mahikipawa, an upper arm of Pelorus Sound. More mills were established, and native timber was shipped around New Zealand and to Australia. By the start of the 20th century the timber camps had largely given way to dairy and sheep farms. In 1939 the last mill was closed. About 325 million feet of timber had been sawn over a period of sixty years, and only two small areas of native timber remained. In 1888, a

Risso's dolphin Risso's dolphin (''Grampus griseus'') is a dolphin, the only species of the genus ''Grampus''. Some of the closest related species to these dolphins include: pilot whales (''Globicephala'' spp.), pygmy killer whales (''Feresa attenuata''), melon ...

appeared in the sounds. This dolphin became famous as

Pelorus Jack Pelorus Jack (fl. 1888 – April 1912) was a Risso's dolphin (''Grampus griseus'') that was famous for meeting and escorting ships through a stretch of water in Cook Strait, New Zealand. The animal was reported over a 24 year period, from ...

and became the first dolphin in the world to receive the protection of the law. Pelorus Jack would accompany boats to and from the notorious French Pass. He would join boats bound for Nelson at the entrance to Pelorus Sound and for eight kilometres would ride their bow waves to Pelorus Sound. He did not go through the pass with them, but would meet returning boats as they exited the pass. Pelorus Jack was last seen in April 1912. The lightkeeper at French Pass claimed he found the body of Pelorus Jack decomposing on the shore. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

coastal fortifications The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

were constructed on

to protect

, and the entrance to the sound. These fortifications included a 6in Mk 7 gun emplacement, and range finding equipment that is still there today. In 1906, New Zealand purchased its first naval ship, a sail

training ship A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house classr ...

called NZS ''Amokura''. It became a coal hulk in 1922, and in 1953 was towed into St Omer Bay in

, an arm of Pelorus Sound. It was used there as a store hulk and jetty. Reported broken up in 1955, her remains lie on the beach in the southern end of the bay. In August 2014, the name of the sound was officially altered to Pelorus Sound / Te Hoiere.

Industry

Marine farming

Over 80 percent of New Zealand's

aquaculture Aquaculture (less commonly spelled aquiculture), also known as aquafarming, is the controlled cultivation ("farming") of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants (e.g. lot ...

exports - worth more than $NZ 200 million per annum - come from the Marlborough Sounds. Most of the marine farms are in Pelorus Sound. Most of the exports involve green-lipped mussels. A New Zealand

sea sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...

, ''Mycale hentscheli'', which grows in Pelorus Sound, may hold the key to an anti-cancer drug. Scientists are working to see how peloruside, a substance produced by the sponges, might be used as a cancer-fighting drug. Marine farmers are helping

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well know ...

and

NIWA The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research or NIWA ( mi, Taihoro Nukurangi), is a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand. Established in 1992, NIWA conducts research across a broad range of disciplines in the environmental scien ...

develop a method for growing the sponge on an existing mussel farm. Trial mussel farms began in the Marlborough Sounds in the late 1960s. In the Pelorus Sound waters, mussel farms started in Kenepuru Sound and in Crail Bay. Subsequently, Pelorus has become the major mussel-producing area in New Zealand. Initially, the mussels were cultured on ropes suspended from rafts. It was a labour-intensive method which has since been replaced with a modified Japanese longline system, where mussel spat is packed into stockings and suspended from parallel rows of looped ropes, supported by

buoy A buoy () is a floating device that can have many purposes. It can be anchored (stationary) or allowed to drift with ocean currents. Types Navigational buoys * Race course marker buoys are used for buoy racing, the most prevalent form of yac ...

s.Wassilieff, Magg
''Aquaculture: Green-lipped mussels''
Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 21 September 2007 In 1981 the first specially designed mussel-processing factory started operations at Havelock, at the head of the sounds. Havelock has become the main centre for landing harvested mussels, with other smaller processing plants at French Pass, Elaine Bay, Okiwi Bay and

Rai Valley Rai Valley is a rural settlement in Marlborough Region, Marlborough, New Zealand. It is located on , northwest of Blenheim, New Zealand, Blenheim and east of Nelson, New Zealand, Nelson. The Rai River runs past the locality to join the Pelorus R ...

. People are needed to manage and work the farms, and to harvest and transport the mussels to the processing plants. As a result, the mussel-farming industry has become closely linked to several local communities.Baines J, McClintock EW and Taylor, N (200
Resource Community Formation and Change: A Case Study of Havelock
Taylor Baines & Associates. Working Paper No. 26. Heavy rain can result in high sediment-levels in rivers and

land runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow) is the flow of water occurring on the ground surface when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when the ...

, and can contain bacterial contamination from livestock. This can result in mussel-farming areas being closed to harvesting. Applications to increase mussel farms in Admiralty Bay have been successfully opposed on the grounds that the area is a special feeding site for the

dusky dolphin The dusky dolphin (''Lagenorhynchus obscurus'') is a dolphin found in coastal waters in the Southern Hemisphere. Its specific epithet is Latin for "dark" or "dim". It is very closely genetically related to the Pacific white-sided dolphin, but ...

. A claim has been made, and a study carried out in New Zealand, that

marine farms Marine Farms ASA is a Norwegian fish farming company. Based in Bergen, it operates salmon farms in the United Kingdom and Spain, through the subsidiaries Lakeland and Culmarex, respectively. It also holds investments in Belize and Vietnam. The com ...

may affect the feeding ability of

Dusky dolphin The dusky dolphin (''Lagenorhynchus obscurus'') is a dolphin found in coastal waters in the Southern Hemisphere. Its specific epithet is Latin for "dark" or "dim". It is very closely genetically related to the Pacific white-sided dolphin, but ...

s which round up

shoals In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It o ...

of schooling fish such as

pilchard "Sardine" and "pilchard" are common names for various species of small, oily forage fish in the herring family Clupeidae. The term "sardine" was first used in English during the early 15th century, a folk etymology says it comes from the ...

. The farming of Chinook Salmon also occurs in the outer Pelorus, with sites at Bulwer and the Waitata Reach. Salmon farming in the sounds is likely to expand in future years into the Cook Strait.

Pine forestry

Since the 1970s, large areas of exotic (

) forest have been planted around the sounds. Bulk timber is exported from a deep-water berth in Shakespeare Bay to the west of Picton.

Māori

The

of New Zealand are the

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

. The local

, Ngāti Koata and Ngāti Toa have engaged in

with the aim of supplying better employment for their people. They are concerned about protecting their sacred sites, and about the environmental effects of industrial scale marine farming. They have objected to some development projects, such as a mussel farm in an area where their people are starting to return to the land, and a proposed harbour development at Havelock, where the local dump was located near sites and a waterway sacred to Ngati Kuia. Māori groups are becoming better resourced through settlements and income from fisheries quotas. They are more active at looking after their interests. Community tensions have increased, with some interests feeling Māori hold up development.

Tides and currents

There have been several hydrographic studies in Pelorus Sound. These show the importance of the large, variable freshwater input into Pelorus Sound. The Sound has 380 kilometres (240 mi) of shoreline and an area of . Average freshwater input is , of which the Pelorus and

Kaituna River The Kaituna River is in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. It is the outflow from Lakes Lake Rotorua, Rotorua and Lake Rotoiti (Bay of Plenty), Rotoiti, and flows northwards for , emptying into the Bay of Plenty near Te ...

s at the head of the sound deliver respectively. Rain falling directly on the surface of the sound provides another , and the remainder drains from adjacent land via small streams. This freshwater input corresponds to a depth of of water distributed over the area of the sound per year. The freshwater input is highly variable. In a typical year there are several events where the daily rainfall exceeds and the river flow exceeds . The freshwater inflow generates an estuarine circulation in the main channel, with low-salinity water moving outwards at the surface, and higher-salinity water flowing inwards below. The currents in the main channel associated with this circulation are typically , but immediately after a flood event they can be much larger. Fresh water layers have been observed to spread through the Sound at . After each flood event, the freshwater is slowly flushed out of the sound, with a

flushing time The residence time of a fluid parcel is the total time that the parcel has spent inside a control volume (e.g.: a chemical reactor, a lake, a human body). The residence time of a set of parcels is quantified in terms of the frequency distributi ...

estimated to be 21 days. The tidal regime at the entrance to Pelorus Sound is typical of New Zealand coastal locations, i.e. there is a semi-diurnal tide modulated on a spring-neap cycle, generated by the superposition of M2 (lunar, semi-diurnal) and S2 (solar, semi-diurnal) tidal constituents. Other tidal constituents, notably N2 (semi-diurnal, generated by the ellipticity of the moon's orbit), introduce further modulation, meaning that the spring-neap cycle is not exactly repeated. The tidal range varies between at neap and at spring. (These values are calculated from a sea level time series, July 1997 – February 1998, at Pelorus Sound entrance.) The propagation of this tidal signal into Pelorus Sound has not been well described, but models and measurements both suggest that the tidal range within the sound is somewhat larger (by 10–20%) than at the entrance. Because the sound is long, and in places narrow, the tidal currents are fairly strong. A further factor affecting the hydrodynamics of Pelorus Sound is wind. Winds in the area are generally strong and are channelled by the steep

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

. Wind stress acting on the surface generates currents, which have not been well described. The wind stress also generates turbulence, which causes the surface fresh water to be mixed down and results in a

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

layer typically thick. The interface, called a

pycnocline A pycnocline is the Cline (hydrology), cline or layer where the density gradient () is greatest within a body of water. An ocean current is generated by the forces such as breaking waves, temperature and salinity differences, wind, Coriolis effec ...

, between the brackish near-surface water and the denser water below supports internal wave motion. Waves on the pycnocline, called internal waves, are ubiquitous in Pelorus Sound. They propagate at and involve vertical displacements of the pycnocline through . They are often generated by the tide, in which case they are called

internal tides Internal tides are generated as the surface tides move stratified water up and down sloping topography, which produces a wave in the ocean interior. So internal tides are internal waves at a tidal frequency. The other major source of internal w ...

. They play an important part in driving flow and horizontal exchange in bays off the main channel. For example, current meter records at the entrance to Beatrix Bay show a significant semi-diurnal component with velocities up to . This is not simple, uniform tidal flow in and out of the bay because its amplitude does not follow a spring-neap cycle and there is a phase difference of several hours between the surface and the bottom.

Timeline

* Mists of time: The founding father of the

arrives in the South Island in his canoe Te Hoiere * 1642:

sails past

. * Late 17th century: French and Russian explorers arrive. * 1770s: Captain

arrives. * 1827:

Jules Dumont d'Urville Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (; 23 May 1790 – 8 May 1842) was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. As a botanist and cartographer, he gave his nam ...

has a disconcerting ride through French Pass in the French Navy corvette ''Astrolabe''.Baldwin O (1979) ''The story of New Zealand's French Pass and d’Urville Island.'' Fields Publishing House, Plimmerton, p. 164. * 1838: HMS ''Pelorus'', carries out the first survey. The sound is named in honour of this survey. * 1864: Gold is discovered in the Wakamarina Valley, and briefly Havelock becomes a boom town. * 1865: Milling of native timber begins * 1870: A

flax Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known in ...

mill starts operating on the Ruapeka Stream * 1888: First appearance of the dolphin

. * c. 1900: The timber camps are giving way to dairy and sheep farms. * 1912: Pelorus Jack dies. * 1939: The last native timber mill closes. Only two small areas of native timber remain * 1942:

Coastal fortifications The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

are constructed on

to protect

, and the entrance to the sound. * 1953: NZS ''Amokura'', New Zealand's first naval ship, is towed into St Omer Bay in

, an arm of Pelorus Sound, and retired on the beach, where her remains lie to this day. * 1960s: There is a general decline in wet fish and

scallop Scallop () is a common name that encompasses various species of marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, the common name "scallop" is also sometimes applied to species in other closely related families ...

harvests, as some

wild fisheries A wild fishery is a natural body of water with a sizeable free-ranging fish or other aquatic animal (crustaceans and molluscs) population that can be harvested for its commercial value. Wild fisheries can be marine (saltwater) or lacustrine/ri ...

collapse due to

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...

. * Late 1960s: Mussel farming begins. * 1981: The first specially designed mussel processing factory is established at Havelock.

Notes

Further references

* Rutland, Joshua (1900
"On the Regrowth of the Totara"
''Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand'', 33: 324–327. {{Marlborough Region, state=collapsed Landforms of the Marlborough Region Sounds of the Marlborough Sounds