Harbourmaster stood down after helping to save orca

Thursday, 15 December 2016

A Coromandel harbourmaster has been stood down from some duties after helping to free an entangled orca using a council boat.

The action was taken using a Waikato Regional Council vessel after the Department of Conservation failed to send a rescue team to free the struggling whale, said Dr Ingrid Visser of the Orca Research Trust.

The breeding female was trapped by a cray pot line for 16 hours before locals acted, Visser said.

But DOC spokesman Steve Brightwell said while staff were notified on Wednesday at 9am, they were busy and planned to go out later in the day.

READ MORE: Diver frees entangled orca

When staff were free by mid-afternoon, conditions were unsafe. He said staff intended to check on the orca at 9am on Thursday, but it had already been freed.

The department does not have any standard period for when it must respond, he said.

Visser called DOC's inaction 'inexcusable'.

'The Coromandel Peninsula has had at least three orca entanglements that I know of, so the Department of Conservation should be well prepared for this.'

Multiple calls were made to the DOC hotline and to individual conservation officers on their cellphones on Wednesday, Visser said.

But at 7pm on Wednesday, the orca was still trapped at Kennedy Bay.

Whitianga harbourmaster Matthew Collicott said on Facebook that it was at this point he stepped in.

Visser concurred that the harbourmaster volunteered to help in the rescue, along with a volunteer who had trained in whale and dolphin disentanglement.

They took a Waikato Regional Council boat out to where the orca was trapped. Conditions offshore were perfectly calm under a full moon.

'I talked them through the protocol,' Visser said. 'They were onsite monitoring the animal and the rope became slack around the tail, so they were able to bring it alongside.'

Brightwell said the original informant told DOC the orca appeared to be in a good condition and the decision was made that it was not in enough danger to risk sending staff out in the dark, Brightwell said.

Further inquiries into the incident will be made, he said.

In a statement, Waikato Regional Council chief executive Vaughan Payne said the council is checking whether any regulations were breached or operational procedures not followed during the rescue.

In the meantime, he said the harbourmaster, who is due to leave the council's employment on Friday after resigning some time ago, has been taken off operational duties as inquiries continue.

The council expects its inquiry into the issues will take some time, he said.

During the rescue, the pair engineered a grapple out of a crowbar and hooked the line to bring the orca alongside the boat.

Visser said the entangled orca was being held up by another orca in its pod.

Once the rescuers ascertained it wasn't trapped any further, they managed to cut the rope free from the orca's tail. It then swam off.

'It had been entangled for 16 hours, so it was getting to the point where every breath was an issue for it,' Visser said.

'That's just inexcusable.

'If they hadn't have stepped in, the animal would have died.'

Visser was aware the harbourmaster had now been stood down from some duties.

'It is an absolutely disgusting display of lack of empathy,' she said.

'Someone should be held accountable for doing such a despicable thing to someone who was trying to help an animal in need.'

There was no way an endangered marine animal should be left for 16 hours in a net, she said.

'If it was left overnight, it would drown.

'These guys are tasked with [knowing about] boat safety. The harbourmaster is a very experienced skipper and in a full moon and calm, there were minimal risks.

'[The harbourmaster] was incredibly responsible and someone who cared.'

Gail Thwaites, who was one of many people to contact DOC about the orca, said she was transferred to multiple DOC offices and finally spoke to someone at the Whitianga office to report the incident.

Around 5.30pm, she discovered the animal was still trapped.

'I got back on the phone again … from 9.30 until this time of night and nothing was done, it could have been dead.

'DOC didn't do their job.

'I think it's disgusting that the harbourmaster was stood down. He was acting in good faith with good intentions to save this orca. I'd love to know what the story would be if nothing was done and the orca died.'

New Zealand has the highest rate of orca entanglement in cray pots in the world, Visser said.

Orca typically play with the cray pot lines, Visser said, and when there was slack rope, they often became entangled.

'We ask the cray pot fishermen to keep the lines as short as possible.'

'There are about 100 female orca around New Zealand and here we have a breeding age female left to fend for herself with the help of her family – it's deplorable.'