Takoko said Lee Grace (Ng\u0101ti Uep\u014dhatu) was the first to see the humpback.<\/p>\n
The vessel was sailing towards Tuparoa, a \u201cwell-known\u201d whale corridor.<\/p>\n
While June and July sightings were common, it was unusual to spot a whale at this time of year, Takoko said. <\/p>\n
The whale surfaced and turned to its side before submerging. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a really chance sighting, really magical experience to see her in our waters,\u201d Takoko said.<\/p>\n
\u0100vei Moana Voyage researchers were thrilled to spot the young whale. Photo \/ Moananui Sanctuary Trust<\/p>\n
The sighting kicked off the New Zealand leg of the \u0100vei Moana Voyage, supported by Moananui Sanctuary Trust – an indigenous-led Pacific conservation initiative.<\/p>\n
The \u0100vei Moana ocean science team are spending five days on the East Coast as part of a two-year-long expedition. <\/p>\n
Researchers were collecting environmental DNA samples at the time of the whale sighting. <\/p>\n
Environmental DNA is genetic material, such as skin cells or faeces, shed by organisms into their environment. It can give researchers an accurate picture of plants, animals, fungi and microscopic single-celled organisms. <\/p>\n
The expedition\u2019s ultimate aim is to see a \u201creturn and thriving recovery\u201d of paikea, par\u0101oa (sperm whales) and southern right whales in the region, after extreme weather events deposited high levels of silt into waters.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstanding these ecosystems is a critical climate resilience solution,\u201d Moananui Sanctuary Trust said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cBy mapping the biological baselines of these silt-laden environments, the team can better understand how to recover the habitats and food webs that migrating whale populations depend upon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Data gathered will support customary marine title applications for 12 Ng\u0101ti Porou hap\u016b and \u201ccontribute to indigenous-led frameworks for ocean monitoring\u201d.<\/p>\n
For Takoko, the whale sighting was extra meaningful. <\/p>\n
\u201c(The sighting) was a really special sign of great things to come – that we\u2019re on the right pathway and that the whales know that we\u2019re there for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The voyage is supported by research organisation and non-profit organisation Apparent Winds.<\/p>\n
Its boat, the SV Resilience, is a 23m ocean monitoring vessel skippered by Apparent Winds executive officer Prentice \u201cTripp\u201d Brower.<\/p>\n
It has been joined by the vessel Tangaroa on this expedition.<\/p>\n
The voyage will continue on to the Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia), Tahiti, Samoa and Tonga. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Takoko said Lee Grace (Ng\u0101ti Uep\u014dhatu) was the first to see the humpback. The vessel was sailing towards…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[11586,3806,22771,32042,19635,111,139,69,6662,206951,8205,2214,147,59684,30279,21328,26010,406,4741],"class_list":["post-401081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-coast","tag-east","tag-excited","tag-humpback","tag-marine","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-off","tag-paikea","tag-rare","tag-researchers","tag-science","tag-sighting","tag-tairwhiti","tag-thrills","tag-whale","tag-wildlife","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401081","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=401081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}