{"id":64768,"date":"2025-08-13T09:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T09:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/64768\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T09:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T09:49:07","slug":"whitianga-orca-encounter-swimmers-3m-from-massive-dorsal-fin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/64768\/","title":{"rendered":"Whitianga orca encounter: Swimmers 3m from \u2018massive\u2019 dorsal fin."},"content":{"rendered":"

Being camera-shy, Aull said they turned to avoid being filmed – only to be confronted with a \u201chuge fin\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at water level, so the fin is massive.<\/p>\n

\"WhitiangaWhitianga resident Andrea Connolly, said the orca encounter was terrifying. <\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, [it was] almost touchable, it was at least three metres away.\u201d<\/p>\n

AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\n

The pair thought it was a shark, so they tried to escape the water rather quickly, with Connolly saying it had been a \u201dterrifying\u201d discovery.<\/p>\n

They then realised it was an orca and spotted two more close by, but Aull and Connolly still opted to exit the water.<\/p>\n

They said it took them roughly over a minute to reach shore, where they watched from the safety of the beach.<\/p>\n

Connolly said she acknowledged the orca might have just been \u201cwanting to play\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201c[But] we weren\u2019t going to wait and see.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bit of an adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aull said while the encounter had been \u201ca fright and a shock\u201d, it wouldn\u2019t stop her from going back into the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a one-off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OnceOnce they realised it was an orca, two more orcas a bit further away were seen approaching closer. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hayley Jones of Glass Bottom Boat Whitianga<\/a> was among the spectators on the beach filming.<\/p>\n

She posted the video on a local community page, saying the orca encounter was exciting.<\/p>\n

AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c[The orca] was swimming shallow, looking for stingrays and swam straight past [the two women].\u201d<\/p>\n

She said after it passed, it tried to \u201csurf in a wave\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones said she believed the two women were busy talking, and \u201cdidn\u2019t see the female orca approaching\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids and I shouted out to them to get their attention, then they saw the black dorsal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakat\u0101ne.<\/p>\n

AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Being camera-shy, Aull said they turned to avoid being filmed – only to be confronted with a \u201chuge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[23819,28769,64,63,51774,51773,30169,17566,5587,51777,13809,13053,51771,40555,128,8124,51778,51772,1928,13807,51776,51775,8281,51770,338],"class_list":["post-64768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-3m","tag-adventure","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-coromandel","tag-dorsal","tag-encounter","tag-fin","tag-from","tag-joined","tag-massive","tag-morning","tag-orca","tag-residents","tag-science","tag-special","tag-swim","tag-swimmers","tag-their","tag-three","tag-treated","tag-were","tag-when","tag-whitianga","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64768","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=64768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}