The White Shark Conservation Trust has been established to promote awareness of the need to conserve and protect the white shark, Carcharodon carcharias and to educate the public about the animal. This action was triggered by a personal desire of one of the Trustees who decided he could no longer remain an armchair environmentalist.

The realisation of the absolute fragility of these creatures was brought home to Bruce Goorney on a life changing expedition to see the sharks first hand at the Neptune Islands in the Spencer Gulf, South Australia in January 2008. Bruce had already realised the media representation of the white shark was wholly inaccurate, but it was not until he actually met the animals whilst cage diving, that he realised how intelligent, timid, cautious and truly beautiful they are As he recalled on exiting the cage after his first dive, it was the most humbling experience of my life.

After much thought over the rest of 2008, Bruce decided he had to do something proactive to help change the public perception and gain support to help in the conservation effort. Encouraged and aided by Katrina Amiria, in 2009, Bruce and Katrina launched the White Shark Conservation Trust.

The White Shark Conservation Trust is registered with the NZ Charities Commission as a Charitable Trust (Registration Number: CC44083), New Zealand Business Number (NZBN): 9429043211586, and incorporated under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957 (Incorporation Number 2417993).

Clinton Duffy, MSc (Hons) Zoology

I work for the Department of Conservation’s (DOC) Marine Species Team, based in the Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland Office. I initially joined DOC in 1989 on a 13-month contract to undertake a dive survey of the Marlborough Sounds. My work for DOC has focussed on marine protected areas, coastal resource management and species conservation, particularly marine fishes. Together with Malcolm Francis, NIWA, I was co-leader of research on New Zealand’s great white sharks (featured in ‘New Zealand’s Great White Sharks by Alison Balance) between 2005 and 2015. I currently lead the Marine Species Team’s work on protected marine fishes and turtles. This includes projects on great white sharks, basking sharks, oceanic manta rays and threat assessment of all of New Zealand’s sharks and rays. I am a member of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group (Australia & Oceania), a director of the Tindale Marine Research Charitable Trust, a committee member of the Marine Conservation Action Fund (NEAQ) and a marine research associate of Auckland Museum. My museum-based research includes taxonomic studies of spiny dogfishes, whaler sharks and smoothhounds. I have authored or co-authored over 100 scientific publications and reports.

I am a keen recreational fisher and have dived around much of New Zealand’s coastline, including the Kermadec and Three Kings Islands (two of my favourite places to dive anywhere in the world).

Clinton Duffy
11 February 2021

Bruce Goorney

Bruce’s passion for the ocean and marine life was triggered by regular visits to the Caribbean and Bahamas as a child as he had extended family there. Much of his time while out there was spent in and around the ocean with friends and relatives who lived there. The subject of sharks was a common one! At the same time, Jacques Cousteau’s series ‘Ocean World’ series was being aired on TV and Bruce was hooked (he did his first scuba dive at around the age of 10). In 1992 Bruce completed a diploma in Fish Farming and Fishery Management, further fuelled by his fascination with fish and marine life, however, he did not see a future for himself in the industry, and by 2001 was a graduate engineer starting a new career in the aviation industry where he remains employed today. The passion for sharks and marine life never left Bruce and after moving to New Zealand in 2005, he set about ticking ‘seeing a White Shark’, off his bucket list. The White Shark Conservation Trust is the brain child of Bruce Goorney spurred by a lifelong interest in sharks and triggered by a white shark cage diving expedition in 2008 in South Australia. (The White Shark Conservation Trust was created in 2009 and became a registered Charitable Trust in 2010).

While researching setting up the White Shark Conservation Trust, Bruce meet Clinton Duffy for the first time and a strong friendship was established fairly quickly. Clinton was actively working with Dr Malcolm Francis (NIWA) on White Shark Research and Bruce was invited along on numerous tagging and research trips with Clinton around New Zealand. On one such trip to Stewart Island, Bruce met and worked with Scott Tindale, and a bond and friendship was established with Scott. Scott’s wealth of knowledge about the Kaipara Harbour resulted in Bruce, Scott and Clinton doing a number of tagging trips out on the Kaipara resulting in a large number of tags being deployed.

In 2019, Bruce invited Clinton and Scott to join him as Trustee’s to the White Shark Conservation Trust.