A skilled knifeman who mutilated a dead baby orca on Ninety Mile Beach has robbed the country of invaluable scientific research, Northland orca expert Ingrid Visser says.
The dead baby orca was washed up on the beach, 4km south of Waipapakauri ramp, on July 5. However, when the Department of Conservation
reached the mammal it had been badly mutilated. The carcass was then sent to Massey University for a post mortem and the results have just been released.
The university's veterinary pathologist Wendi Roe said that, while she usually saw at least a couple of dead baby marine mammals each year, she had never seen one chopped up as badly as this male baby orca was.
"We do see babies who have died in storms soon after birth but I have never seen one mutilated in this way. We do also see adults with bits chopped off but not babies," Ms Roe said.
The baby orca was missing his head, tail, dorsal and right pectoral fin, and his right side had been cut open. The mutilation of his body was performed after death and Ms Roe said it was done skilfully by a person well-versed in using a knife.
While it is not an offence to accidentally kill an orca, failure to report a death and mutilation after death are offences under the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978.
The mutilation has shocked Dr Visser, founder of the Orca Research Trust, who said the calculated and senseless act had robbed the country.
"There are fewer than 200 orca living around New Zealand and, when one dies, its carcass is incredibly valuable for scientific purposes," Dr Visser said.
"It ends up in Te Papa for the benefit of the whole country. This is very distressing as it's not just a matter of taking something off the beach ... we could have established a whole lot about that animal that we now can't."
She suspected that whoever mutilated the orca was hoping to get its teeth or bones to carve, but they would have been out of luck. Because it was so young the teeth would not have formed and its bones too brittle for carving.
Dr Visser urged anybody with information about the mutilation, or who saw people cutting up dead marine mammals, to contact DOC.
Despite being known as a killer whale, the orca is actually the largest member of the dolphin family. Females tend to calve only five times in their lives.
