Huge dredge arrives at Lyttelton
Stowaway cat feared drowned
One of the world’s biggest dredges has arrived at Lyttelton for New Zealand’s largest dredging project – amid uproar about a stowaway cat killed before the vessel entered the harbour.
The 230 metre long dredge Fairway arrived from Mumbai, via Singapore, to dredge the port’s shipping channel to equip it for ever-larger ships.
The project will cost up to $120 million.
As the ship arrived, the SPCA confirmed it was investigating the killing of a stowaway cat on the Fairway last week.
Some of the vessel’s crew are said to be distressed and believe the black cat was thrown overboard.
Crew members fed the cat after it was discovered on board. They named it Lucky and built a cage to hold it.
Representatives for the ship’s owners declined to comment.
A Biosecurity New Zealand spokesperson said they told the vessel’s operators to contain the cat before the dredge entered New Zealand waters.
They were subsequently told it had been euthanised.
The dredge’s arrival was already coloured by controversy as the project it arrived to complete was opposed by environmental, fishing and recreational groups.
Lyttelton Port Company was granted resource consent in March to dredge the channel. Chief executive Peter Davie said container vessels had ‘‘virtually doubled in size’’ in the past decade, and the work would trim freight costs for Lyttelton customers by more than 10 per cent.
Dredging will be done in stages, starting tomorrow, and will take about 12 weeks to complete. Fairway ’s owners, Netherlands-based contractor Royal Boskalis Westminster NV, will do the work.
The port company said the environmental monitoring programme for the project would be the largest ever in New Zealand. The biosecurity plan to allow the dredge to visit New Zealand was developed with input from science organisation the Cawthron Institute.
During the consenting process, Nga¯ i Tahu lodged environmental and cultural objections about the impact of dumping the excavated silt.
As part of a mediated settlement, the port company will provide real time data on the project on its Harbour Watch website, and is setting up video monitoring of the surf break at Taylors Mistake as a result of a settlement with surfing lobby group Surfbreak, who also opposed the project.
The company will pay Nga¯ i Tahu $650,000 over 25 years to go towards mahinga kai (food gathering).
The first stage of the dredging will deepen the shipping channel for vessels with a 13.3m draught, while future stages will allow 14.5m draught vessels to enter and depart across all tides.
The wife of a crew member told The Press that crew, a mixture of New Zealanders and internationals, had excitedly shared news and photos of Lucky with their families prior to Fairway’s arrival.
The animal appeared healthy and the families planned to raise funds for its care, the woman, who asked not to be named to protect her husband’s job, said.
Crew were initially told to throw the cat overboard but refused. That was why they believed that was its eventual fate, she said.
‘‘They (the crew) were loving having the cat, and they were all excited about it. When they learned what had happened, they were very upset and unsettled.’’
The crew believed the cat was destroyed as it was considered a nuisance, she said.
‘‘When they arrived in port it could have had a vet check and been rehomed, or at least destroyed humanely if need be.’’
An SPCA spokesperson said inspectors were investigating after they received a complaint about the alleged incident, which happened in international waters.