{"id":315089,"date":"2025-11-28T21:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T21:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/315089\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T21:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T21:18:08","slug":"humpback-whale-sighting-delights-fishers-in-northlands-bream-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/315089\/","title":{"rendered":"Humpback whale sighting delights fishers in Northland\u2019s Bream Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHe was jumping out of the water and flapping his fins all over the place; he was showing off and putting on an amazing performance. Then he just stopped and cruised down the bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing, awesome and unforgettable \u2013 it was so cool: that\u2019s the only way to explain it, and we were lucky enough to have been able to take pictures.”<\/p>\n

Adams shared her photos with the Bream Bay Guardians Society because of concerns about the impact of sandmining<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McCallum Bros has applied for fast-track consenting to dredge more than 8 million cubic metres of sand from the Bream Bay ocean floor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adams and the Bream Bay Guardians Society fear the sandmining could destroy the seabed<\/a> and change the environment so that humpback whales, seals, stingrays and dolphins won\u2019t return.<\/p>\n

\"MicheleMichele Adams says she feels grateful for the humpback whale encounter, and glad she could capture it.<\/p>\n

McCallum Bros says on its website that sand extraction can be done in an environmentally responsible manner.<\/p>\n

An assessment of environmental effects on marine mammals found the waters around the extraction site are used by about 30 marine mammal species for foraging, resting and breeding.<\/p>\n

However, it found each of these species, except bottlenose dolphins, had large home ranges, so the proposed sand extraction site would represent only a small part of their overall distribution.<\/p>\n

The assessment, by SLR Consulting, recommends McCallum Bros take further measures to reduce underwater noise, ship strike, marine debris and entanglement, with a management plan resulting in either a low impact on, or an improvement to, marine mammals.<\/p>\n

An expert consenting panel will consider the sandmining application before a final decision is made about its fast-track consent.<\/p>\n

Denise Piper is a news reporter<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe was jumping out of the water and flapping his fins all over the place; he was showing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,9826,178087,38820,19429,178085,30169,102588,178086,9371,14550,26796,18692,4717,61397,22545,128,1113,178088,100796,38810,18204,338,1050,3605],"class_list":["post-315089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bay","tag-bream","tag-coast","tag-continue","tag-delights","tag-encounter","tag-enormous","tag-fishers","tag-friends","tag-group","tag-hope","tag-humpback","tag-in","tag-northland","tag-northlands","tag-science","tag-sighting","tag-unforgettable","tag-visit","tag-whale","tag-whales","tag-wildlife","tag-will","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}