The self-titled Shark Man, Riley Elliott (above), uncovered his love of marine mammals as an undergraduate student at the University of Otago. Now, he is one of New Zealand's foremost shark researchers and advocates. Carla Green reports.
Riley Elliott doesn't tend to do things the conventional way.
That might have something to do with his father, he says.
"My dad said: ‘Never chase success, never chase the money. You do what you love, and you become the best at it. And success will follow'.''
Mr Elliott has become one of the most well-known shark researchers in New Zealand.
But in 2006, he was just starting his academic career, as a University of Otago undergraduate.
He chose Otago, he said, because of the "traditional university campus experience'', which, to a certain extent, means Mr Elliott liked to party.
"That's exactly what I'm saying, in a tasteful manner,'' he said wryly.
But he did not just choose Otago for the party culture.
Mr Elliott loved Otago's natural beauty - he surfs, fishes and snowboards.
"I'm a firm believer in 'work 100%, 60% of the time','' he said.
"As opposed to 60%, 100% of the time, because when you have fun, you then feel somewhat guilty, and you work at a higher workload at more efficient rates.''
While he was at Otago, Mr Elliott said he would "have fun, party three nights a week, wake up, go for a surf to get rid of my hangover, and then go to class''.
But when he was in class, he worked hard.
He got good grades, he said.
"If you go to Dunedin [for] university to party, you are a ... [fool].
"You're not going to university for the right reasons.
"I went to university in Otago because it had the combination of lifestyle, outdoor stimulus, great social life, and it was the best research university in New Zealand.''
And it was as a student at Otago that Mr Elliott started on a path towards his research with sharks.
He started with dolphins, studying bottle-nosed dolphins in Fiordland.
Then, on one dive, he saw a shark.
He freaked out.
"I'm a very confident waterman, so I had no fear, but it was when I saw this shark come out of the depths - because you're looking down in Fiordland, it's 400m deep, you know you can't see anything but you know everything down there can see you, because of your silhouette.''
The shark turned out to be tiny - "a 1ft long fish and chips shark''.
And instead of turning away from his fear of the shark, he faced it.
He went to South Africa that summer to study great whites.
"I always knew that I could never conquer that fear, because that animal was always going to be there,'' he said.
"I just wanted to understand the context of that fear.''
And that was how Mr Elliott plunged into the depths of shark research.
After that summer, he returned to Otago and did his masters, studying dolphins.
But he had caught the shark bug.
"It was an amazing project, and an amazing opportunity, but I was just hooked on this whole shark buzz.''
So once he had finished his masters, Mr Elliott decided to do a PhD on sharks.
"The more I learnt about [sharks], that fear turned into a fascination. Through science, I learned that sharks have an absolutely incredibly bad rep, and that's resulted in 90% of the sharks in the world being wiped out in the past 30 years, through shark finning.''
At that time, New Zealand was one of the top five exporters of shark fins in the world, Mr Elliott said.
But "through science'', he helped in a successful campaign to get New Zealand to ban shark finning.
It became illegal in New Zealand waters in October 2014.
Part of the success of that campaign, Mr Elliott said, was an elaborate public relations scheme that involved his appearance in everything from a book deal, to newspaper articles, to a TEDx talk.
All that, he said, was about communication.
"New Zealanders have quite a longing to take care of their own back yard.''
But to take care of their back yard, New Zealanders have to know what was happening.
"I had to give people a story that explained what sharks were, what they were facing, and why they should care.''
So that is what he did.
But his strategy was not always popular with colleagues.
"I got highly scrutinised for using media to communicate my science. But who reads scientific journals these days? No-one in the public does, is the short answer. And everyone uses social media.''
Mr Elliott's experience in science communications has also served him well in funding his PhD, which he is completing without a scholarship.
That means he is responsible for paying all his expenses while doing a PhD full-time.
He has solved the problem of self-financing through paid appearances, sponsorship and crowdfunding.
"Studying sharks, it's been five years of absolute hell,'' he laughs.
"I mean, I've self-funded this research, and my PhD, because industry doesn't fund these kinds of animals.''
Mr Elliott said he could have got a scholarship at Otago, but he wanted to move from the Dunedin "student lifestyle'' and diversify his academic background.
Still, despite the move, Mr Elliott said financial constraints meant he still lived like a student in certain ways.
"I'm 30 years old and I still live off $400 a week, you know?''
Mr Elliot said he felt the effects of his time at Otago, even years later.
For one thing, he said, he knew how to live like cheaply.
"Being a resourceful person, and a student in Dunedin, I know how to live cheap.''
Then, there was the cachet of an Otago diploma, he said - and having lived at Selwyn College has given him advantages.
"The old boys' network that you walk into. When you say you're from Selwyn, immediately, you're on a rapport that no-one else came compete with.
"So, the tradition is invaluable that comes from Dunedin ... I don't think I would've got that anywhere else.''
