A dead whale carried into the Port of Tauranga on a ship's bulbous bow was thought to be a Bryde's whale.
A dead whale carried into the Port of Tauranga on a ship's bulbous bow was thought to be a Bryde's whale.
A dead whale estimated to be 12-metres long has been carried into the Port of Tauranga jammed onto the bulbous bow on the front of a cargo ship.

Department of Conservation staff thought it was a Bryde's whale and more than 12m long, although not all of the animal was visible out of the water when it was moved on Wednesday, DOC Tauranga Rotorua area operations manager Jeff Milham said.

"We are talking about a big whale."

DOC and port staff and tangata whenua had been at the scene during the afternoon to work out what to do with the whale.

The last he heard the plan was to remove the animal from the bow of the ship, then secure it somewhere for the night.

A decision on what to do next would be made on Thursday.

"A crane is one option and will probably be the option," Milham said. Working out how to attach the animal to the crane was an issue.

Milham did not know many more details on Wednesday evening. DOC was interested in finding out where the whale was picked up by the ship and whether it was killed by the ship, he said

The appropriateness of a necropsy was being considered, along with how that might be done.

In the Hauraki Gulf, efforts to keep Bryde's whales safe from ships included a voluntary protocol developed in 2013. Part of it was a request that ships travel more slowly through the area.

Before then it was thought around two Bryde's Whales were being killed a year as a result of collisions with ships. That was a threat to the long-term survival of the semi-resident population of the whales, estimated at fewer than 200, in the gulf.

Late in 2016 Ports of Auckland said there were thought to have been no whale deaths for the previous two years, while average ship speed in the Hauraki Gulf had dropped from 14.2 knots to 10.5 knots.