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Meet the
Shark Man
Camping trip to Stony Bay, Northern
Coromandel Peninsula.
Riley enjoying an early morning surf
at Ocean Beach, Tairua.
Amber lights up when asked about
Kona, their German Shepherd-Samoyed
pup, named in honour of their affection
for the Big Island of Hawaii. “Neither
of us have ever felt so connected to
an animal. Kona is definitely a human
inside a little white fluffy body!”
EXPLORING OUR BACKYARD
For now, the focus is to enjoy being
tourists in their own town and to explore
a coastline that Amber describes as “one
‘wild adventure’ playground”. They love the
fact that “our days are completely dictated
by Mother Nature. We rise, work, play and
sleep with the sun. Our Sunday grocery
shop is dictated by what goods the ocean
can provide that afternoon (if any).”
This summer, the couple have enjoyed
jumping into their truck and discovering
remote beaches across the Coromandel.
“When you’re on the Coromandel, true
adventure awaits right out your back door!
You can run up a cliff, walk in the bush, dive
in the ocean or boat out to an island. It’s
wake up, grab the dog – and off we go!”
Marine biologist Riley Elliott, age 32, was born in Vancouver, Canada and moved
to Hamilton in New Zealand when he was five years old. Advice from his father
early in life is still an important principle he lives by: “Never follow success;
follow your passion and success will come.”
Riley completed his BSc Honours in Zoology and Masters in Marine
Science with Distinction while studying an endangered population of
dolphins in Fiordland’s Doubtful Sound. There, an encounter with
a shark left him fascinated and inspired him to study great white
sharks in South Africa, where he was invited to stay on and help
run the ‘Oceans Research Great White Shark Programme’.
“Sharking” has taken Riley around the world many times
and seen him involved in numerous documentaries and
media appearances, including those with Hawaii’s ‘shark
whisperer’ Ocean Ramsey. To make a mark and help end
the Western Australia shark cull in 2014, Riley and Ocean
jumped into the water to resuscitate a 3m tiger shark,
left for dead from a hook set by the fisheries drum line
culling programme.
In this country, Riley was at the fore of the anti-
shark finning campaign, a practice now
banned in New Zealand waters. His book
‘Shark Man: One Kiwi Man’s Mission to Save
our Most Feared and Misunderstood Predator’
later spawned the Shark Man television series.
Although Riley has specialised in sharks, his
overarching passion is for the ocean as an
ecosystem. “Sharks are a great catalyst to grab
people’s attention for the broader conservation
messages,” he says.
Riley is also using his science background
to design a ‘stealth’ wetsuit for divers
that prevents sharks from detecting tiny
electrical signals from divers’ muscles.
Free diving with Riley, Amber gets a dramatic
‘close up and personal’ photo of Riley with
this Blue Shark at Castle Rock, near the
Coromandel’s Aldermen Islands.
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COROMANDEL LIFE 2017 LATE AUTUMN / WINTER