Kiwi orca expert in top-rating BBC doco

The research of Whangarei orca expert Ingrid Visser, seen by millions last year when a documentary on her work on the marine mammal appeared on the BBC in the UK, can be seen by Kiwis next week.

Called The Woman Who Swims with Killer Whales, the hour-long documentary reached an audience of up to 80 million when shown on the BBC in August last year.

In their six weeks' filming, Dr Visser and the BBC/Animal Planet film crew with her experienced quite a few whale encounters, including a mass stranding of pilot whales at Karikari.

They also saw a southern right whale in the Bay of Islands and had four orca encounters, one of them directly in front of Dr Visser's Tutukaka Coast home.

It was director Mark Woodward's second Northland documentary. The first, shot in 2005, told the story of a pod of dolphins that went to the rescue of lifeguards threatened by a shark at Whangarei's Ocean Beach.

He said Dr Visser stood out among the world's orca experts for her passion and the quality of her research, despite limited resources.

"She has a total passion for marine life. I haven't met anyone else who's quite so single-minded, so as a subject she's a joy and a privilege to follow," he said. It was also unusual for a scientist to have such a high public profile.

"She's a bit of a rock star," he said.

Dr Visser's research had revealed high levels of pollutants in the orcas' bodies, often from substances that had been banned long ago, threatening an already small population.

Dr Visser is pleased the documentary will finally be seen in her home country, being screened on TV3's 60 Minutes at 7.30pm on February 12, and she thanked the public for all their support of her work over the years.

Go to www.orcaresearch.org/index.php/video for a preview of the documentary, plus other clips of Dr Visser in action.

Anybody who sees whales off Northland's coast is urged to ring 0800SEEORCA for Dr Visser to investigate.