A whale found dead on a south Taranaki beach has been buried.
The 22.5m-long pygmy blue whale [Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda], which weighed between 60 and 80 tonnes, washed up on Waiinu beach near Waitotara on Friday night or Saturday morning.
It was one of the largest whales to wash up on the
coast in decades.
The pygmy blue was buried on the beach yesterday by Department of Conservation [DoC] staff, members of Nga Rauru iwi and local residents.
It took two diggers to bury the whale.
The normally-quiet beach was busy with people travelling up the beach to see the whale.
Nga Rauru iwi were on site yesterday, working with DoC to assist with decision-making over the burial and DNA sampling.
Meanwhile, a 3m pygmy sperm whale, which washed up on the same beach south of the pygmy blue yesterday, was also buried.
The pygmy blue whale is a subspecies of the blue whale found in the Indian Ocean and the southern Pacific Ocean. Reaching lengths of up to 24m, it is smaller than the other more commonly recognised subspecies, which reach 29m in length.
Pygmy blues tend to be solitary, although groups of animals are found in areas of high productivity, particularly in the northern Indian Ocean, off Sri Lanka and southern and western Australia.
Blue whales are lunge feeders that consume krill.
