{"id":66293,"date":"2025-08-14T11:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T11:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/66293\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T11:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T11:53:07","slug":"whitianga-orca-encounter-swimmers-3m-from-massive-dorsal-fin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/66293\/","title":{"rendered":"Whitianga orca encounter: Swimmers 3m from \u2018massive\u2019 dorsal fin."},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">Being camera-shy, Aull said they turned to avoid being filmed &#8211; only to be confronted with a \u201chuge fin\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe\u2019re at water level, so the fin is massive.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Whitianga resident Andrea Connolly, said the orca encounter was terrifying. \" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Whitianga resident Andrea Connolly, said the orca encounter was terrifying. <\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cHonestly, [it was] almost touchable, it was at least three metres away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">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<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">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<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">They said it took them roughly over a minute to reach shore, where they watched from the safety of the beach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">Connolly said she acknowledged the orca might have just been \u201cwanting to play\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">\u201c[But] we weren\u2019t going to wait and see.<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIt was a bit of an adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">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<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIt was just a one-off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Once they realised it was an orca, two more orcas a bit further away were seen approaching closer. \" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Once they realised it was an orca, two more orcas a bit further away were seen approaching closer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">Meanwhile, Hayley Jones of Glass Bottom Boat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/topic\/whitianga\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/topic\/whitianga\/\">Whitianga<\/a> was among the spectators on the beach filming.<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">She posted the video on a local community page, saying the orca encounter was exciting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">\u201c[The orca] was swimming shallow, looking for stingrays and swam straight past [the two women].\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">She said after it passed, it tried to \u201csurf in a wave\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIt was a great watch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">Jones said she believed the two women were busy talking, and \u201cdidn\u2019t see the female orca approaching\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\"> \u201cThe kids and I shouted out to them to get their attention, then they saw the black dorsal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"VlRjDBdOEhcqBVAb\" style=\"display:none\">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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Being camera-shy, Aull said they turned to avoid being filmed &#8211; only to be confronted with a \u201chuge&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[16076,11845,34915,34914,34911,11699,900,34918,34913,25002,34326,26630,90,7429,34919,34912,25459,34917,34916,56,54,55,15452,11555,34910,4407],"class_list":["post-66293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-3m","tag-adventure","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-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-were","tag-when","tag-whitianga","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}