The slender traveller of the coastal current. Long streamlined body, pointed snout and large dark eyes. Uniform greyish-bronze covers the back. It fades to a pale white belly. The fins are dark. The tail is asymmetrical with a longer upper lobe. A shark built for distance, not speed. A shark that once filled the nets. The morphology suits the migration. The endurance is key. Nomads of the coastal zone. School sharks travel in large single-sex schools. They move up and down the coast with the seasons and currents. They feed on small fish, squid and crustaceans. Sharp pointed teeth grab and hold prey. They are live-bearers. They give birth to litters of up to 40 pups after a year-long pregnancy. A slow return for a mother shark. A long wait. The investment is high. The payoff is delayed. Once the backbone of a major commercial fishery. Millions of kilograms were landed each year. The flesh was sold as flake in fish and chip shops. Fins were exported to Asia. New Zealanders ate school sharks by the millions. Wrapped in newspaper. Sprinkled with vinegar. Barely thinking about where the fish came from. The consumption was casual. The supply seemed endless. It was not. Now the fishery is a shadow of what it was. School sharks are a fraction of their former abundance. The schools that once darkened the inshore waters are thin. The big females that carried dozens of pups are gone. The fishermen who built boats and houses on the back of the school shark fishery have retired or died. The industry has moved on. The resource has not recovered. To catch a school shark is to catch a ghost. The shark that used to be everywhere. That fed the nation. That is now a rare and precious sight in coastal waters. The shark of the empty school. The one that used to fill the nets. That made the fishermen rich. That is now a memory. A photograph. A story told by old men on the wharf. The narrative is one of loss. The evidence is in the water. Or lack thereof. The quotas are strict now. The recovery is slow. A fish that takes a decade to reach breeding age does not bounce back quickly. The ocean does not forgive easily. The biology dictates the pace. Human impatience clashes with natural timing. The result is depletion. The management attempts correction. But the lag is significant. The population remains low. And the school shark swims on. In thinner schools. Hoping the nets stay away. The instinct persists. The migration continues. The risk remains. It carries on.