{"id":310984,"date":"2026-03-03T13:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/310984\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T13:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:06:09","slug":"deep-sea-whale-re-floated-after-stranding-on-central-auckland-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/310984\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep-sea whale re-floated after stranding on central Auckland beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Project<\/p>\n

\nProject Jonah marine mammal medics and Department of Conservation staff respond to a Beaked whale stranded in St Heliers.
\nPhoto: Supplied \/ Project Jonah\n<\/p>\n

The Department of Conservation (DOC) has floated a whale back out to sea after it stranded on Auckland’s St Heliers Beach.<\/p>\n

The Shepherd’s beaked whale was spotted at Ladies Bay this morning.<\/p>\n

DOC operations manager Bec Rush said the whale had a health check and was then refloated as the tide was rising about 3.30pm<\/p>\n

“However, it is possible the whale will re-strand overnight, and we will be monitoring for if this happens.”<\/p>\n

Shepherd’s beaked whale strandings are semi-regular in New Zealand, said Rush, and they are occasionally seen live at sea, with reports from offshore Taranaki, Gisborne, Kaikoura, Otago, and Fiordland.<\/p>\n

Project Jonah spokesperson Louisa Hawkes said Shepherd’s beaked whales lived in the deep sea, and only came up to shore if something was wrong.<\/p>\n

Stranded, injured or dead whales should be reported to the DOC emergency hotline 0800 DOC HOT (0800 362 468).<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Project Jonah marine mammal medics and Department of Conservation staff respond to a Beaked whale stranded in St…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,147,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-310984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz","18":"tag-science","19":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}