Huge whale washes ashore

Grey ocean and sky shrouded the body of a sperm whale found dead without clear reason on the south Wairarapa coast yesterday morning.
A fisherman setting out for the day about 7am discovered the lone bull whale ? 17m in length and weighing up to 50 tonnes ? lying apparently dead in the surf of a desolate stretch of beach near the Whatarangi coastal settlement at Cape Palliser.
The whale showed no sign of injury to its exposed left side and was not visible from the road or the nearby cluster of homes as it was lifted and swayed by the rising tide.
Conservation Department marine mammal advisor Helen McConnell said only 20 sperm whales have stranded since 1938 on the Wairarapa and Wellington coastline, making it "a fairly rare occurrence".
The death of the whale found yesterday will remain a mystery, she said, as there is to be no post mortem examination.
"There is very little information available on whale deaths in these circumstances, although there is a researcher in Auckland who has shown interest in recovering the stomach contents if he can make it down in time."
She said the female sperm whale grows to a length of about 12m and the male up to 18m, varying in weight between the sexes from 20 to 50 tonnes.
Phil Brady, programme manager for the Department of Conservation Wairarapa area office, said the whale may have lain at the site for some time and would have died soon after beaching itself if not washed ashore already dead.
"It would only need to tumble over a couple of times and they literally crush themselves to death. They're not made to be out of the water and the weight on their vital organs is immense."
Mr Brady said the department reported the stranding to Haami Te Whaiti, representative of the South Wairarapa iwi Ngati Hinewaka and a Wellington Conservation Board member.
Mr Brady said conservation officers, who yesterday identified and measured the whale, would attempt recovery of the jawbone today before an expected southerly moved the animal to another area of beach or the ocean reclaimed its own.
"Any recovery would have to be done fairly quickly before it's taken somewhere else or lost forever. But whatever happens it can't stay there, or it will become a health risk," he said.
Mr Brady said there have been several smaller species of whale stranded on or near the Cape Palliser coast in the past decade with a sperm whale beached there in 1998 and a second and third respectively at White Rock and Flat Point in 2004.
Mr Te Whaiti, speaking from Melbourne yesterday, said he is returning home tomorrow and will arrange recovery of the traditionally revered jaw and various bones of the animal if possible.