A post mortem on two deceased whales found on Papamoa Beach has revealed the juveniles did not die due to the oil from container ship Rena.
A juvenile Gray's beaked whale was found dead on Friday, October 28 and was followed by the discovery of a juvenile Pygmy Sperm whale's carcass on Saturday morning.
Volunteers try to refloat the whale. Photo: Ross Brown.
Nga Potiki Resource Management Unit manager Matire Duncan says a post mortem has revealed no evidence of oil induced death, however toxicology results are still pending.
'The Gray's beaked whale died of natural causes and the Pygmy Sperm whale died of a twisted bowel.”
Both carcasses are being stored at the wildlife facility in Te Maunga.
Matire says Massey University scientists who performed the post mortem would like to hold the two whales for a few more weeks.
'The plan is to take them to Palmerston North for a Cat Scan in order to investigate whether any sonar issues contributed to their deaths.
'This will allow us time to make appropriate burial arrangements in consultation with other interested groups.”
7 comments
What is the Nga Potiki Resource Management Unit ?
Posted on 02-11-2011 08:53 | By wreck1080
Is this ratepayer funded? What do they do?
lol
Posted on 02-11-2011 09:26 | By Capt_Kaveman
"did not die due to the oil " who are they kidding how much sealife die on these shores? not many this whole event is becoming a laughing stock, are people that gullable
I found a dead fish a year ago
Posted on 02-11-2011 09:54 | By Gee Really
Found a dead fish washed up on the beach a year or so ago. Didn't occur to me that Massey University could have performed a post mortem on it, but maybe I should have asked them. I buried it in the sand immediately. Hope that was appropriate as I didn't consult with other interested groups. Wonder if George Orwell was still alive if he would write "Marine Farm" as a sequel to "Animal Farm." All marine animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
Nga Potiki
Posted on 02-11-2011 11:35 | By Demali
Nga Potiki is the iwi that encompasses the Papamoa District.
There are some idiots out there!
Posted on 02-11-2011 13:20 | By bryceh
Two of the comments before this one attempt to add some humour into the equation; pathetic! Obviously "Gee Really" the autopsy needed to be performed on the whales to establish liability if the oil spill was responsible for them. Any halfwit would have worked that out! And to "Capt-Kaveman" - so you believe you know better than the officials who conduct the post mortem? Maybe you believe there is some massive government conspiracy about this?! Get a life and give up comedy.
Sonar
Posted on 02-11-2011 13:24 | By rachstewart
A possibility could be that the sonar being used by the ship searching for containers may have been responsible for the strandings. Not only does the sonar interfere with the whales own sonar, but it is also like a high pitch screaching sound which is painful and has caused whale death/strandings in other countries.
yea right
Posted on 02-11-2011 14:30 | By encore
oil not the cause of whale deaths. we all know that don't we, we get dead whales washed up on papamoa beach every other day. YEA RIGHT!
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