When Zac Penman got the call about a whale in trouble off Rakiura, the Department of Conservation disentanglement expert was 800 kilometres away at a surfing competition in Kaikoura. But the moment he heard it was a southern right whale—a tohorā in Māori—he started planning. "Being a southern right whale, it was something we had never dealt with before," he said.
The nine-metre whale had become tangled in fishing gear, dragging four buoys and 100 metres of rope behind its tail. Fishers spotted it on Saturday morning near Rakiura, New Zealand's southernmost inhabited island. What followed was a multi-day rescue that required an extraordinary level of coordination, patience, and expertise—and ended with the first southern right whale ever recorded entangled in New Zealand waters swimming free.
By Monday, DOC teams and southern right whale experts had located the animal near the coast, where a cod pot at the end of the rope had snagged on the rocks below, tethering the whale in place. They attached a satellite tracking buoy to monitor its movements while they worked out the safest approach. The situation was complicated by the nature of tohorā themselves. "Tohorā are among the most difficult whale species to disentangle," said Jennifer Ross, DOC's Rakiura operations manager. "They are large, extremely strong and incredibly mobile—this makes any attempt to free them particularly dangerous." The whales can change direction quickly, roll 180 degrees, and even swim backwards. "They're more unpredictable than other whale species."
Monday night brought a surprise: the satellite tracker showed the whale moving north toward the port of Bluff. By Tuesday morning, the team had positioned themselves at the Bluff ferry terminal—and convinced ferry staff to make a brief detour to the tracker's last known location. "The crew agreed, and because of that detour we were able to get eyes on the whale, and save crucial hours in the day," Ross said.
They caught up with the whale by boat just after 4pm. "We really slowly, really cautiously pulled ourselves up the rope towards it," Penman recalled. When the whale noticed the team at its tail, it let out a powerful blow—a sound Penman described as a trumpet. "You think, 'holy moly, I'm in the presence of something so much bigger than me'... it's about the size of four or five elephants, so it's something you don't want to stress out." The whale turned to look at the boat with one of its large dark eyes. "It's like looking at the stars, just knowing there is so much more behind that eye."
Forty-five minutes later, the rope was cut and the tohorā swam off into the sunset. The team returned to shore "pretty elated." They celebrated with a well-deserved beer at the local pub.
The rescue carries particular weight because southern right whales came close to extinction from whaling and remain rare. There are thought to be roughly 1,000 to 5,000 tohorā in New Zealand waters, and they are a taonga—sacred—species for Ngāi Tahu, the South Island's largest iwi. "This is an animal that every single one in this population counts," Penman said. "They were whaled nearly to extinction and being able to do this one thing for this one animal is just something incredible."
Ross urged fishers to set only as much line as necessary, especially during migration season, while thanking everyone who reported sightings quickly. "Whale disentanglement is extremely dangerous and should never be attempted by anyone without the right training and gear," she noted. "But people reporting sightings quickly has meant we're able to get the right people in place to try and free the whale."