Bucket brigade answers the call of the whale

Picture / Alan Gibson

It was discovered by a solitary jogger, but a stranded whale was soon surrounded by a crowd of hundreds who helped in a "textbook" rescue in the Bay of Plenty yesterday.

The 4m whale, believed to be a minke, was found stranded in the Ohiwa Harbour, south of Whakatane, early in the day. It had swum 5km up the harbour and got stuck in sand close to shore.

The whale was spotted at 6.45am, when the tide was low. After news of the stranding was broadcast on a local radio station, a crowd of about 300 gathered. Volunteers formed a chain from the shore, passing buckets of water to pour over the whale.

The Ohope Volunteer Fire Brigade joined in the effort with a portable pump.

Department of Conservation staff used a special cradle to refloat the whale, the age and sex of which were uncertain, and tow it out to sea.

The rescue took more than six hours but ended with the whale swimming away.

"It was pretty much textbook," said Matt Cook, programme manager of biodiversity at DoC's Rangitaiki area office, who led the rescue.

The whale was refloated about 10am, when the tide started to come in, but it took another three hours for it to be towed to the open sea.

Several boats and kayakers formed a flotilla around the whale while other spectators watched from shore.

Mr Cook said the whale spent about 15 minutes circling once it was released from the cradle. It tried to head back into the harbour but was herded in the right direction by the boats and swam strongly away.

Mr Cook said it was hard to be sure of the age, sex and species of the whale, but it was believed to be a juvenile minke, less than two years old.

Photographs would be sent to an expert at Te Papa in Wellington to examine.

The DoC Rangitaiki area office said it was very rare for whales to come into Ohiwa Harbour, although dolphins and orcas were sometimes spotted in the area.

There had been no other sightings of whales in the area in recent weeks.