Dead orca honoured

The body of a young orca discovered on a South Taranaki beach has been given a traditional Ma¯ ori send off.

The young whale was between 2 and 3 metres long and was dead before it washed up on the Patea beach last week, Nga¯ti Ruanui kaiarataki Debbie NgarewaPacker said.

‘‘We took a customary approach to it, which is probably the environmentally safest way to deal with it.’’

Part of the process was the naming the orca Mana-KuraTangi-Po, which will be used to identify the taonga taken from the whale.

The process took most of last Thursday afternoon. They don’t bury the whale, Ngarewa-Packer said.

‘‘Sadly, we’re getting extremely experienced at the customary recovery now. I think we’ve worked out this is the 12th whale that our wha¯ nau has been a part of.’’

In May 12 sperm whales washed up on a 5km stretch of South Taranaki coast at Kaupokonui.

In 2016 three whales, a fin, an orca and a 14m blue pygmy, were discovered washed up on beaches near Opunake, Patea and Rahotu on separate occasions, while a baleen whale was left to decompose naturally on Ohawe Beach, near Hawera, in 2012.

Ngarewa- Packer said when iwi were working on the orca last Thursday a lot of locals asked why they did not just bury it.

‘‘Environmentally there’s such a lot to contend with.’’

If a mammal of this nature was buried there would be so many toxins and bacteria that would leak from it, she said.

So instead they flense the flesh from whale, clean the bones and identify taonga. ‘‘The recovery is done in such a way that the bacteria and toxins released are minimised. And as much as possible is taken away or put back into the sea in a way that sort of continues that cycle. It’s a cycle that is environmentally friendly.’’