Ship blamed for 'unpleasant' whale death

JAN CLAYTON-GREENE/DOC

FOUND DEAD: Department of Conservation South Marlborough biodiversity manager Phil Bradfield inspects a 17-metre sperm whale that washed up near the Awatere River mouth last week.

A huge sperm whale that washed up on a beach near Seddon was probably killed by the propeller of a large ship, the Department of Conservation says.

The 17-metre, 25-tonne young male sperm whale was found washed up last Monday about 2km north of the Awatere River by Geoff and Polly Marfell, whose property, Castlebrae, leads to the beach.

Department of Conservation (DOC) staff from South Marlborough, Phil Bradfield and Jan Clayton-Greene, and Brett Cowan, of DOC Kaikoura, spent 24 hours taking small samples from the whale for research and preparing it for burial.

Mr Bradfield, biodiversity programme manager for DOC South Marlborough, said the whale had a deep 2.5m gash along its dorsal fin that exposed muscle and intestines.

He said gashes caused by predators such as orca or sharks were usually jagged, but this one was straight, which made him suspect it was caused by the propeller of a large ship.

"It must have been a pretty unpleasant death. It's always disappointing to find such a magnificent and large marine mammal die like that. It does happen. All we can do is learn from it."

The whale was probably hit between Cook Strait and Kaikoura.

"That ties in well with what we know about sperm whales that frequent the Kaikoura Canyon, they are the younger males," Mr Bradfield said.

Samples will be sent to Auckland University for research and potential identification of the whale, in the event it was recorded by researchers in the past.

Mr Bradfield said in the past, teeth and jawbones had been taken from washed-up sperm whales by looters, so DOC staff stayed with the whale for 24 hours until it was blessed by representatives of local iwi and buried on Tuesday. A 25-tonne digger was used to move the whale in three sections for burial.

He said the whale was buried because it could have washed up on a nearby public beach and become a health hazard.. The 4.5m, jawbone was separated from the whale before it was buried. Mr Bradfield said it weighed about 1.5 tonnes.

Mr Bradfield said it was unlikely large numbers of whales were being hit by ships in the sea off Marlborough and Kaikoura.

"Whales are very buoyant, so they would have washed up. The hit is a concern as numbers [of whales] increase, but the chance of a ship encountering a whale in the Pacific Ocean is pretty small."

Mr Bradfield thanked Geoff and Polly for their support and for allowing DOC access across their land.

Castlebrae co-owner David Marfell said they kept news of the whale quiet "so we didn't have people running all over the place".

"We have had pilot whales and bottlenose [dolphins], but nothing like this," he said. "I haven't seen one in the flesh since the days of the whaling station in Tory Channel."