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Bluff is New Zealand's southernmost town. It is a place which feels the force of the
sea, but also reaps its rewards. Today the town surrounds a harbour full of fishing boats.
The sea drew Māori here and in the early 1800s Europeans came to hunt whales. The town
was established as Campbelltown, but since the locals knew it as Bluff that was the name
that eventually became official. Today harvesting the delicacies of the sea
gives the place its character. There are more fish and shellfish landed in Bluff than at
any other New Zealand port. Between Bluff and Stewart Island is Foveaux Strait, a stormy
stretch of waters in which fish and shellfish flourish.
Bluff is most famous for oysters. Known in New Zealand as Bluff oysters, dredge oysters,
or by the Māori name of tio, this delicacy is actually the Chilean oyster. It has a flat
upper shell and a cupped lower shell and in between is the succulent food famous throughout
the country.
The oyster usually lives for about 8 years in extensive beds about 35 metres below the
surface. It has a most unusual sex life - it is sometimes an hermaphrodite producing both
eggs and *** at the same time; at other times it is distinctly male or female. Foveaux
Strait oysters have been harvested since 1863, and although the beds have been on occasion
struck by disease they are still productive, after almost 150 years of harvesting. When
the oyster season begins in February, restaurants throughout New Zealand clamour for the first
pottles. Every May Bluff holds an oyster festival where the competition is fierce as to who
can open the most oysters.
The Bluff fishing fleet also bring in other delicacies - crayfish are found around the
rocky coasts and the waters of Stewart Island and Foveaux Strait are home to blue cod. Two
thirds of the nation's blue cod come from here. Blue cod is a sweet, firm, fleshy fish
and popular with New Zealanders.
Bluff also processes green-lipped mussels, and pāua, a native abalone, which is often
minced up into delicious patties.
A delicacy particularly popular with Māori is muttonbird. Muttonbirds are actually sooty
shearwaters, known to Maori as Tītī. They are a small fluffy bird with brown feathers
and are the most numerous of all New Zealand seabirds. Every November the birds dig a burrow
and lay a single egg. The next year, during April and May South Island Māori set off
from Bluff and head towards 36 islands off the southern coast of Stewart Island to gather
the shearwater chicks. This is known as muttonbirding. Only Māori with hereditary rights have permission
to take part in the harvest. In the first part of the harvest, in early April muttonbirders
work during daylight and reach into the burrows to catch the chicks; in the later part, from
mid April to the end of May, the birders work at night by torchlight and capture the chicks
as they emerge from their burrows. Māori used to preserve the birds in their own fat
and packed them into a large bag made of a type of seaweed called bull kelp. Muttonbirds
could be preserved that way for many months. Today muttonbirds are often salted and then
carried to Bluff. It is said that muttonbirds taste remarkably like sheep meat -- hence
the name.