Education
Nobody protects what they have never seen. Every tour that walks through the farm leaves knowing what a pāua is, how slowly it grows, and why that matters.
Sustainability
A farm that puts pāua
back.
We raise pāua on land, in flowing seawater, on an island reached only by boat. Some of what we raise goes back into the ocean. This is how the place actually runs.
2016The Kaikōura earthquake that prompted the reseeding programme
167,000Juvenile pāua we raised for that programme in 2018
~9 monthsEach generation spends in our tanks before release
2025Results published in a peer-reviewed journal
Inside the hatchery
Pāua are single-shelled and fragile, and can bleed to death if they are handled badly. Every stage of this happens by hand, on the island.
1
Broodstock
Wild adults are gathered for spawning and handled carefully on the way in.
2
Spawning
Male and female are induced to spawn, and the fertilised eggs hatch.
Within 24 hours
3
Into the tanks
Fresh seawater, cool temperatures, and tipper buckets pushing oxygenated water across the tanks so it feels like the currents outside.
Day 9 to 10
4
Feeding and thinning out
Fishmeal pellets and finely chopped seaweed. As they grow they are separated into less crowded tanks.
Every three days
5
Out again
At 10 to 15mm they are big enough to be placed back into rocky habitat in the wild.
At around 9 months
Peer-reviewed
What the research actually found
After the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, the regional pāua group PauMAC3 started a reseeding programme. We raised the juveniles. Divers placed them into rocky habitat along the Kaikōura coast, and researchers came back for three years to see what happened.
Hatchery-raised pāua can make a real contribution to a wild population when they go into suitable habitat. They were still there after three years, growing well at most sites, and many had reached likely breeding size. Results varied between sites, natural recruitment was also high in those years, and reseeding is not a substitute for good fisheries management.
Read the full project page, including what the numbers don't show
What holds it up
Three things shape how we run a farm, a jewellery business and a place people stay, all on one island.
Authenticity
We use every part of the pāua we can: meat, shell and pearl. Each pearl carries a Certificate of Authenticity, untreated and unenhanced, so you know exactly what you have.
One island, one cycle
The farm, the tours and the jewellery all run off the same island and the same work. Visitors learn what happens here, and the business that grows around it is what keeps the tanks running.
We honour the Tiaki Promise
- Respect the land, seas, lakes, rivers and mountains
- Look after the fragile ecosystem
- Protect the native flora and fauna
Tiaki means to care for people, place and culture. Aotearoa New Zealand is a taonga, and everyone who lives or travels here has a part in keeping it that way. Read the full promise
Come and see how it works
The clearest way to understand any of this is to stand in front of the tanks. Tours run year-round, twelve guests at most.