THE SEARCH FOR NEW OCEAN LIFE JUST GOT DEEPER (NEWSROOM READY)

Ocean Census/NIWA via AP Content Services - Global access all platforms in perpetuity for the purpose of telling the Ocean Census species discovery story. No archive resale. Mandatory on screen credit: Ocean Census/NIWA

A pioneering expedition to discover new species in one of the most remote parts of the deep ocean is about to set sail from New Zealand. 

Ocean scientists will spend 21 days investigating the unexplored Bounty Trough off the coast of New Zealand’s South Island. They will search to a depth of 5000 metres looking for marine species new to science. Undiscovered corals, sponges, fish, molluscs, sea stars and urchins are just some of the treasures the Ocean Census team hope to return with.

The mission is a cooperation between The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census Alliance, New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The organisations have come together under the Ocean Census banner as part of a recently-launched global alliance of the world’s leading marine science institutions. The shared ambition is to discover and protect tens of thousands of new species across the global ocean over the next decade in the face of the climate and biodiversity crises. 

New Zealand's 15,000 kilometres of coastline are amongst the most stunning in the world. The island nation's shores are lapped by the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea. The great Southern Ocean currents sweep north to here from the Antarctic and are integral to New Zealand's marine ecosystem. This sea-life rich environment has given New Zealand its place at the top table of marine science expertise and the ocean's bounty has been a food source for its people and a critical part of the country's export economy for generations.

New Zealand's national environmental research institute NIWA is a global authority on what lies beneath the waves across a vast swathe of ocean. 

But one area is still an unexplored mystery - the Bounty Trough lies east of New Zealand and it is here, at depths of up to 5000 metres, that scientists on the Ocean Census expedition believe they'll be the first humans to set eyes on species which will prove totally new to science. Expedition co-leader Sadie Mills says the voyage will expand the frontiers of knowledge... 

SOUNDBITE SADIE MILLS EXPEDITION CO-LEADER, NIWA (ENGLISH)

"This is a really under explored area of the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone. We are going to discover, hopefully, if this goes well, hundreds of new species on our voyage. And this is really important because we want to accelerate the discovery of ocean life. With threats to those types, to the biodiversity and climate change threats, we need to understand what we've got, so that we can protect it, before it's lost."  

It's a view echoed by Professor Alex Rogers, the veteran ocean explorer who leads the Ocean Census science mission. Rogers says New Zealand’s Bounty Trough has been selected because it is one of the world’s least explored deep ocean ecosystems with significant potential for discovering new life. But he warns this is a race against time.... 

SOUNDBITE PROFESSOR ALEX ROGERS, OCEAN CENSUS SCIENCE DIRECTOR (ENGLISH)

“Discovering species in the ocean is really urgent. Global climate change and regional and local stressors - such as overfishing and plastic pollution - are causing huge changes in marine life and a huge decline in many marine species."

The research vessel, the Tangaroa, which will be home to the team for the next three weeks, is packed with specialist equipment, purpose built to withstand huge changes in pressure at depths few humans have ever experienced. Amongst the most valuable to scientists is the deep-sea camera imaging system which is their eyes on an unexplored world. Although it’s estimated that about two million species inhabit our ocean, little more than 10% of those have been discovered; making the Tangaroa's mission crucial to building up a fuller picture of the so-called "Tree of Life".  

SOUNDBITE DR. KAREEN SCHNABEL, MARINE BIOLOGIST, NIWA (ENGLISH) "Our success on this voyage is going to be returning with a whole bunch of buckets of samples that we can then examine here in the lab, which will be like Christmas coming all at once. And, finding crustaceans all the way from the top of the Bounty Trough down to the very lowest parts, and to find new species.  

At New Zealand's national museum, known as Te Papa, they already house an array of fish specimens in vast sealed tanks and an even larger collection of molluscs and other marine life in carefully controlled conditions, capable of withstanding an earthquake. The collection is the envy of the taxonomic world. Scientists from the museum are a key part of the Ocean Census expedition and they're clear on the urgency of the mission.

SOUNDBITE DR. THOM LINLEY, MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND FISH EXPERT (ENGLISH) "What we need to do is to have an accurate representation of our fauna within our waters before it is impacted by climate change. We are already seeing distributions of species changing. We're seeing things that we know turn up in different places and move south as warming waters encroach. And so we can't measure those changes if we don't know what we have. And even more worryingly, is that we could lose things we didn't know we had."  

SOUNDBITE KERRY WALTON, MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND MOLLUSCS EXPERT(ENGLISH) "Humans are having impacts all around the world. Often unintended and often unnoticed. The oceans that we see today are not at all how they were prior to human arrival." 

SOUNDBITE ANDREW STEWART, MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND FISH EXPERT (ENGLISH) "We don't live in isolation. Things that happen in the deep sea surprisingly affect us - weather, productivity of the ocean, and all these sorts of things. It's coming to all of us, unfortunately, climate change - the effects of climate change, and it's going to start affecting the deep ocean. And we need to know what's there in order to know how it changes." 

In New Zealand's capital, Wellington, where cable cars carry tourists to its beauty spots there are few vistas which don't afford picture postcard ocean backdrops.  In these parts knowledge of what lies beneath the waves predates modern science. For the country's Māori who settled here from Polynesia hundreds of years before the British first landed on its shores; the ocean - or Moana as it is called in Māori -  is a sacred ancestor. The sun never sets on its cultural importance and the hope is the Ocean Census Bounty Trough Expedition can add to that vast treasure trove of traditional knowledge by going to depths impossible for early settlers to explore and returning with species never before seen by human eyes. 

Ocean Census/NIWA via AP Content Services - Global access all platforms in perpetuity for the purpose of telling the Ocean Census species discovery story. No archive resale. Mandatory on screen credit: Ocean Census/NIWA

Wellington, New Zealand -  06 February 2024

SOURCE OCEAN CENSUS/NIWA

RESTRICTIONS Global access all platforms in perpetuity for the purpose of telling the Ocean Census species discovery story. No archive resale. Mandatory on screen credit: Ocean Census/NIWA

DURATION 6.21 

SHOT LIST (ALL SHOT WELLINGTON REGION, NEW ZEALAND JAN 27-Feb 6,2024)

1, Cape Palliser coastline aerials and lighthouse

2. Fur seals at Cape Palliser

3.Fisherman angling off Wellington 

4. New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, NIWA , building exteriors

5. Map on computer of Bounty Trough

6.Expedition co-leader Sadie Mills working at computer on voyage mapping

7. SOUNDBITE SADIE MILLS, EXPEDITION CO-LEADER (ENGLISH) This is a really under explored area of the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone. We are going to discover, hopefully, if this goes well, hundreds of new species on our voyage. And this is really important because we want to accelerate the discovery of ocean life. With threats to those types, to the biodiversity and climate change threats, we need to understand what we've got, so that we can protect it, before it's lost.

8. Ocean Census Science Director Prof Alex Rogers walking down the gangway on research ship Tangaroa in Wellington Port. 

9. SOUNDBITE PROFESSOR ALEX ROGERS,OCEAN CENSUS SCIENCE DIRECTOR (ENGLISH)  “Discovering species in the ocean is really urgent. Global climate change and regional and local stressors - such as overfishing and plastic pollution - are causing huge changes in marine life and a huge decline in many marine species."

10.Research vessel the Tangaroa at sea (RECENT FILE) 

11.Tangaroa vessel equipment - dropping camera system (RECENT FILE) 

12  Underwater fish life (RECENT FILE) 

13 SOUNDBITE DR. KAREEN SCHNABEL, MARINE BIOLOGIST,NIWA "Our success on this voyage is going to be returning with a whole bunch of buckets of samples that we can then examine here in the lab, which will be like Christmas coming all at once. And, finding crustaceans all the way from the top of the Bounty Trough down to the very lowest parts, and to find new species."

14.  Exterior National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa 

15. Giant fish species storage tanks in museum marine laboratory 

16. Museum Fish Collection Curator Andrew Stewart puts samples onto earthquake-proof shelves

17. Dr. Tom Linley, Fish Species Curator examines a blob fish in a tank 

18. SOUNDBITE DR. TOM LINLEY, MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND FISH EXPERT (ENGLISH) "What we need to do is to have an accurate representation of our fauna within our waters before it is impacted by climate change. We are already seeing distributions of species changing. We're seeing things that we know turn up in different places and move south as warming waters encroach. And so we can't measure those changes if we don't know what we have. And even more worryingly, is that we could lose things we didn't know we had."  

19. SOUNDBITE KERRY WALTON, MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND MOLLUSCS EXPERT (ENGLISH) "Humans are having impacts all around the world. Often unintended and often unnoticed. The oceans that we see today are not at all how they were prior to human arrival." 

20. SOUNDBITE ANDREW STEWART, MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND FISH EXPERT (ENGLISH)"We don't live in isolation. Things that happen in the deep sea surprisingly affect us - weather, productivity of the ocean, and all these sorts of things. It's coming to all of us, unfortunately, climate change - the effects of climate change, and it's going to start affecting the deep ocean. And we need to know what's there   in order to know how it changes." 

21. Wellington cable car with ocean in background

22. Waves on beach at Raumati Beach, Kapiti Coast

22. Maori statues on  hilltop lookout, Hongoeka, Kapiti Coast and on Mt.Victoria,Wellington

24. Sunset sky over Hongoeka, Kapiti Coast north of Wellington