Two rare whales found at Taupo¯ Bay
The two whales found dead on the beach at Taupo¯ Bay on Monday were of one of the rarest species of all.
Taupo¯ Bay locals notified the Department of Conservation early on Monday morning after finding a female pygmy right whale, about 5m long, and a calf measuring 2m. They were about 500m apart, the adult at the midpoint of the beach and the calf at the southern end.
The mammals attracted a steady stream of curious locals, among them Steve Herk and his daughters Prairie and Aurora, who had been planning to collect tuatua. Prairie said she was surprised and saddened by their find.
She had seen plenty of dolphins in the bay, and the odd sea turtle, but this was her first whale. She was heading home afterwards to look it up and try to work out what species it was.
DoC marine ranger Cat Peters, from Russell, said pygmy right whales were “super rare”. They had only been seen at sea 30 times.
They were mostly found in Antarctic waters — Taupo¯ Bay was near the northern limit of their range — and they were a pelagic (open sea), migratory species.
“Beyond that there’s little we know,” she said.
Their cause of death was not known, and they had no obvious signs of trauma. The adult’s baleen [bone] was broken, but that could have happened when it washed ashore. Both had circular bite marks left by cookiecutter sharks, but those would not have been lethal.
Morgan Moses (Nga¯ti Rua) expected the whales to be carried out by the tide. That didn’t happen. The bodies were skinned, with the bones to be buried at one location, for retrieval in about a year’s time, and the other remains at another).
Environment group He-ManuTaupunga, led by Hori Parata, removed the bones, which Mr Moses said could be used in future as a taonga and as a learning opportunity for youth.
Meanwhile Ms Peters, who was accompanied by a marine mammal specialist from the Bay of Islands-based Tangaroa Research Institute and two French interns, said this year’s unusually high number of whale sightings was due to warmer sea temperatures and easterly winds bringing their food closer to shore. Higher than average sea temperatures had also triggered the die-off of penguins that occurred earlier this year.