Kiwi Konexions: The Day The Whales Came
"In the distance eight great humps were silhoutted against the sky...'' Glen Taylor tells of a deeply emotional day when eight great sperm whales, each nearly 10 ft high, lay stranded on a New Zealand beach. Seven of the whales had signed their own death warrants to lay beside and protect one of their friends, who was dying.
Glen says she will never forget that day - and you will not forget her moving account of what she saw.
It was one of those idyllic days, blue sky, balmy water and nothing to do but laze on the beach and decide when the next dip would be. A time for a good book, a bottle of sun tan cream and maybe the odd snooze. Then things started to happen.
The site owners came down to tell folk that eight sperm whales were beached beyond Pakawau. Pilot whales often beach here and whale rescue kits are situated around the bay. D.O.C. (Department of Conservation) and volunteers keep these smaller creatures wet and cool until the incoming tide returns and they can be refloated, towed out to sea by boat and, with loud noises, hootings and shoutings and generally being a nuisance to them, they can be driven into deep water, leaving the member of their family, sick or old, whose side they were loath to leave, to die on the beach.
Are we being cruel to do this or kind? Over-riding their natural instincts to stay together as a pod rather than leave the weak one to die alone.
But sperm whales are different. Nothing can be done for them, they are too big. They need the sea for support, without it their own body weight will crush them to death. It is a long painful process and suddenly our idyllic afternoon was no longer idyllic.
Like the others, we drove up past Pakawau and parked our car, with the many more, in any place we could find. We took our cameras. In the distance eight great humps were silhouetted against the sky, like small hillocks.
There was anticipation in us as we stepped onto the mudflats, squelching through fishy, sea-weedy smelling mire, worrying about what our feet would touch or how deep we would sink, trying to keep to the higher firm bits of tussock, which somehow survives in this salty environment. We passed wading birds, searching out shellfish, crabs and worms. We might have stopped to watch them, got out the binoculars and ooh’d and ahh’d, but not today. Those shapes on the horizon were calling us.
Beyond the mud, we hit the hard, firm sand, flat and stretching out to the distant waves of the ebb tide. This flat sand makes the shallow warm water of the Bay such a trap for these great creatures.
Excitement was rising in us. It isn’t often that you can see these great creatures, one of the largest species of whale in the world, at such close quarters. Our pace quickened, now we were free of the mud we could walk with confidence. We were only two of many heading in this direction. At first we chatted with animation but as we approached conversation ceased, until a sense of entering somewhere holy, special, seemed to pass through everyone.
No-one spoke, no-one raised a camera, no photographs were taken, somehow it would have been wrong. This was no cheap side show. This was something different. Yes, the word could only be holy, we were the privileged ones. At this shrine it would have been unthinkable to speak or raise a camera.
The D.O.C. people stood guard, helpless. An expert was being flown from Wellington to put them out of their misery. An old whaler beside me whispered, as though in church at some State funeral, “Why wait? I know what to do.”
The whales were huge, almost ten feet high. They lay beached on the sand beside their dying friend and in protecting him, or her, they had signed their own death warrants. Groans came from them. Tears rolled down their cheeks. Great eyes looked at you pleadingly, “I am one of you, help me.”
There was nothing anyone could do. I saw the blood oozing from their mouths and gills and I laid my tiny hand, in comparison to their massive size, against them and I wept for them, I shared their pain and I could do nothing.
Later the TV helicopters flew over and on the seven o’clock news, hyped-up reporters told their story. But for the people of the Bay there was only a sense of helplessness, of inadequacy, of awe and of grief for being in the presence of such great creatures on that special day. The day they chose to sacrifice their lives for one of their own.
There was a sadness and a silence over the Bay that day. A day I will never forget and I still ask why?
