Kyle Taylor says seeing the humpback breaching off Whangārei's Ocean Beach was a special experience. Video / Manaia Marine
A humpback whale has put on a stunning display in Northland, breaching in front of a boat off Whangārei’s coast.
The encounter occurred at the same time as a trial started of an AI-powered acoustic detection system in Whangārei Harbour, which will soon give real-time information about marine mammals in the harbour.
Kyle Taylor and partner Alice Lewis-Sneyd, from boat management company Manaia Marine, encountered the humpback off Ocean Beach on Saturday morning as they were delivering a boat to Tūtūkākā.
While they have seen humpback whales in Western Australia, this is the first time they had seen one so close in New Zealand, Taylor said.
“I’ve been working around the sea my whole life and it’s definitely not a usual occurrence ... It was pretty special, he was super playful.”
They first saw the whale jumping several hundred metres away and stopped the boat, watching the whale as it came closer and closer, he said.
“He came right up to the boat and we just observed it for half an hour or so.”
Kyle Taylor says the humpback whale played around, off the coast from Whangārei’s Ocean Beach, for about 30 minutes on Saturday morning. Photo / Manaia Marine
Taylor admitted there was one moment when they became a little worried about the large creature.
“It was diving down and then breaching – spending time on the surface, diving down and then breaching. When it turned towards the boat and dived down, we were thinking, ‘I wonder where it will come up?’ It was right in front of us.”
Witnessing the display in their local waters was very special, he said.
The next day, Taylor was playing golf at Waipu Golf Club when he also saw a humpback whale - possibly the same one - breaching off Bream Bay.
Soon, more details about marine mammals in Whangārei Harbour will be available, thanks to an AI-powered acoustic detection system being trialled by Northport and Auckland-based specialist acoustic firm Styles Group.
The buoy in Marsden Bay, at the entrance to Whangārei Harbour, will listen for the sounds of whales and dolphins and will be able to relay information in real time.
The system, called Cetaware, will eventually be able to transmit data about whales and dolphins in the harbour in real time, enabling the port to manage its marine operations to protect mammals in the channel.
A buoy containing the acoustic detection and tracker system was moored in Marsden Bay, near the entrance to Whangārei Harbour, last Thursday.
While it was a day short of hearing orca in the harbour, it has already picked up a pod of dolphins that were hanging around the harbour on Tuesday morning, said Jon Styles from Styles Group.
“It found dolphins right next to the buoy at 1am and then started firing off a whole lot more at 7am. I texted the guys at Northport and they said they could see them across the harbour.”
The dolphin detection showed not only the software is working correctly but that it can hear sounds from across the harbour, he said.
The system is a passive listening device which hears underwater and uses several AI deep-learning algorithms to classify the sounds, differentiating whale and dolphin noises from other harbour noises.
The Cetaware system will be trialled for about three months and compared with existing manual acoustic monitoring equipment, which Northport has been using for several years but has to manually retrieve every few months.
Once the trial is complete, the data will be available in real time to Northport and other interested parties – such as mana whenua, scientists, the Department of Conservation and the Northland Regional Council.
However, the data feed to the general public will be delayed, for the protection of the underwater visitors.
This is the first time the Cetaware system has been installed to send real-time data in a permanent setting.
Denise Piper is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on health and business. She has more than 20 years in journalism and is passionate about covering stories that make a difference.
