The public is being asked to help locate a southern right whale after it got entangled in a craypot line off the coast of Stewart Island.<\/p>\n
The Department of Conservation said the whale was reported by fishers on Saturday morning and was last seen between Lucky Point and Saddle Point in the afternoon.<\/p>\n
Staff were working to assess the situation and determine ways to disentangle the mammal, Doc said in a statement yesterday.<\/p>\n
The whale appeared to be breathing comfortably and was not in immediate danger, giving responders time to assess the situation and determine the safest course of action.<\/p>\n
Doc Stewart Island operations manager Jennifer Ross asked for anyone who saw the whale to contact Doc on its helpline, 0800362-468, immediately.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018No-one should attempt to cut the whale free themselves as this is very dangerous.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Boaties spotting the whale should stay well clear of it and avoid doing anything to disturb or harass the animal,\u2019\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n
People who have seen the whale were asked to provide as much location detail as possible, including GPS co-ordinates, the time of the sighting, direction of travel and photos if they can be taken safely from a distance.<\/p>\n
Doc said southern right whale disentanglements were more complex than humpback whale entanglements, which were the type its responders encounter most often in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Their large size and different behaviour can add an extra layer of complexity and risk to any response operation.<\/p>\n
A specialist whale disentanglement responder from Kaik\u014dura was expected to arrive on Stewart Island yesterday to assist with the response.<\/p>\n
If conditions allowed and the whale could be safely approached, responders would look at attaching a satellite tracking buoy to help relocate and monitor the animal, Doc said. \u2014 Allied Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The public is being asked to help locate a southern right whale after it got entangled in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-456167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456167","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=456167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}