Blue whale washes ashore

A blue whale suspected to be the same one spotted dead in the water near d’Urville Island has washed ashore on the Wairarapa coast near Flat Point.

The whale was found on the beach at Glenburn Station, which is owned by John McFadzean.

He was alerted that the whale carcass was in the water off the beach on Tuesday by one of his employees.

‘‘Jimmy Mason lives down by the beach in a bach close to the shore and saw something in the water and realised it wasn’t a rock when he saw birds pecking at it. We thought it might float away but the next day it had washed up.

‘‘I contacted DOC and they sent people out here to take a look. We had a sperm whale wash up about a year ago further south but apparently it is pretty rare for a blue whale to wash up in New Zealand waters.

‘‘It was interesting seeing it up close. The baleen in its mouth looked like it was made of plastic, pretty amazing.’’

Department of Conservation ranger Robbie Shaw took measurements of the whale yesterday and found the length to be 21.1 metres, the flippers were 2.8 metres long, the jaw length was 3.9 metres and the tail width was 5.2 metres.

Adult blue whales can grow up to 30 metres in length, and are the largest known living organism on the planet, so DOC staff on site thought the whale was probably not fully grown.

Shaw said the whale was probably the same one seen floating near d’Urville Island near Nelson last week.

‘‘It probably floated through the Cook Strait and up this way. The currents do that sort of thing.’’

Massey University’s Dr Stuart Hunter took samples from the whale to send to marine ecologist Leigh Torres, of Oregon State University, who has been studying blue whales off New Zealand since 2015.

Hunter said researchers could study DNA samples of the blubber to determine where the whale was from.

They could also test the amount of heavy metals in the whale’s system.

‘‘I’ll cut out some of the blubber and some muscle tissue to send off for sampling.’’