Science Centres: Fisheries

Peter Redfearn is well known in the aquaculture world for his long involvement with paua and the highly successful courses, run yearly from 1987 to 2000, that introduced potential farmers to paua cultivation. He was a member of the research team that developed the techniques to rear paua in New Zealand in the early 1980s. This work was based at MAF’s (later NIWA’s) shellfish hatchery in Mahanga Bay, where Peter had been the scientist-in-charge of its design, construction, and early operation.

Before paua, Peter held a fellowship from Meredith Bros Ltd to study toheroa, which saw him in many vehicle-endangering exploits with tides on Northland beaches. He joined the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1972, and continued to work on toheroa, but later became involved with, and ultimately highly experienced in, the culture of a whole range of shellfish, including the Greenshell mussel, as well as in microalgal culture and hatchery microbiology.

Before starting his 36 year contribution to research in New Zealand, Peter was a marine scientist, who, on graduating from Imperial College, London, joined the British Antarctic Survey to use his diving experience in a study of the marine ecology of the South Orkney Islands.

Peter was never at a loss for words in his extensive consultation work on aquaculture site selection, farm development, and resource consent applications, which over the years brought him into contact with many of the people in New Zealand’s aquaculture community. Peter retired from NIWA in August 2003: he will be missed.