This week, just 4km off a popular city beach, a wildlife photographer snapped a series of images showing something “almost unheard of”. Nathan Pettigrew was in his dinghy, a further 16km out at sea, when he got a call from another boat, informing him that the world’s largest species of ocean turtle had been spotted.
“They said you’ve got to see this, so I raced to where they’d been seen, and it was unbelievable,” he said. “It takes a lot to get me excited, but I was absolutely fizzing.”
Critically endangered leatherback turtles can grow to 2 metres in length and weigh up to 900kg, but they’re ordinarily solitary creatures. What was extraordinary about the scene unfolding off Mount Maunganui on the North Island of New Zealand was that there were at least five within 200 metres of each other.
There were plenty of jellyfish in the water to eat, so Nathan was able to observe them for around two hours.
“I realised they weren’t going anywhere, so I stopped and had a peanut butter sandwich,” he told Yahoo News.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to capture more than one turtle at a time because they were “quite skittish”.
“They were spread out. One would come up, and then another would go down,” he said.
Video below confirms there were multiple leatherbacks in the same area.
Marine expert describes phenomenon as ‘almost unheard of’
New Zealand’s Department of Conservation declared Nathan’s sighting “remarkable” and said it highlights the importance of using pursuits like photography to support nature.
Its senior marine sciences adviser, Dr Karen Middlemiss, said very little is known about leatherback behaviour in New Zealand waters, and the images, along with their date, time and location, will help inform ongoing research.
“We’re hoping to satellite tag some of these magnificent turtles to learn how they use our waters,” she said.
And she offered a theory about why there could have been so many leatherbacks in the same place.
“It’s almost unheard of to see five leatherbacks together because they’re generally solitary turtles,” she said.
“They usually only group together if there is a feeding aggregation or they are close to nesting beaches, and these turtles don’t nest here.”
Close up of a critically endangered leatherback turtle off Mount Maunganui. Source: Nathan Pettigrew
In January, six people were killed during a landslip at a holiday park in Mount Maunganui, following record rainfall.
The deaths have devastated the community, leaving many angry at the natural world.
Nathan has lived in the area for 40 years, and as the community heals, he hopes his images provide a reminder of the environment’s kinder side.
“They might make people stop and think about how awesome nature can be, and take their mind off some of the bad stuff that’s happened,” he said.
“And that’s really nice, it really is.”
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