Orca Research Center

I just spent an amazing weekend at the Orca Research Center (Orca Reseach Trust), based in Tutukaka, Northland on the North Island.  The center doubles as the home and work place for Dr Ingrid Visser, New Zealand's world renowned Orca expert.
Ingrid was born in New Zealand to Dutch parents and has been studying Orca (Killer Whales) since 1992, she finished her PhD in 2000 and four years ago built the Research Center on the top of a hill in Tutukaka, an hour north of Whangarei.

View from Center

The view from the Center is just perfect

and Orca come right into the Bay at various times of the year.  There are around 200 resident Orca around the New Zealand coast - covering both the North and South Islands and thanks to Ingrid Visser we know that these Orca are the only ones in the world that feed on Stingray.  The Center is run by Ingrid and a small number of volunteers and this is where I hope to become a member of the team.

Volunteering at the center covers all the usual jobs that volunteers undertake with pretty much any organisation, but I like these jobs - you always need to clean and tidy and have things ready and prepared for anything.  I spent most of the weekend cleaning wetsuits inside and out, letting them dry out and then hanging them up so they are ready for volunteers to wear when needed at whale strandings.

The Center has been set up so the back

Dr Ingrid Visser & an Orca

looks out over the Bays and for miles you are looking out over the open sea, it's perfectly situated so that you can see a pod of Orca as soon as they come round a corner and in to view.  Ingrid has a siren for this purpose and every volunteer has a dry pack ready for that siren.  If it sounds you grab your dry bag and jump into the 4x4 to head out with Ingrid and the boat.  She will then spend as long as she can out on the water with the Orca - studying and photographing them.  Considering the Center is run solely by Ingrid with help from such a small number of people, it really is an amazing achievement and I'm glad to be a new comer to it all.  I've loved Orca since I was around 5 years old and have never seen one in the wild but hope to while I'm in New Zealand.

The blue Orca 4x4 and the boat, there is also another Orca Research Trust 4x4.  Like any organisation of this kind the Research Trust is always after volunteers and financial support.  However, due to Ingrid's heavy travelling schedule, it can be very hard for her to find time to allow new volunteers in as she just doesn't have the time and opportunity to show them around and show them what needs to be done.  At present Ingrid is flying constantly between New Zealand and Spain in the fight to free a Orca named Morgan.

Morgan is young Orca (now 6 yrs old) who was found off the coast of Holland in 2010, it was decided that she would be taken in by us humans with the idea that once recovered she woud b released back into the wild.  But after a court battle in Holland Morgan has now been passed to Spain and placed in a marine park to perform for the public - against everything that was promised when she was found.  She is a wild born Orca and should remain so, humans have abused the power they have and have now turned her into a captive Orca all in the name of money.  There is no reason why Morgan can not be released back into the wild and this is where Dr Visser and others are fighting for what is right for Morgan and not humans.  In her present situation, Morgan is being constantly attacked and biten by the other Orca she now resides with, the trainers ignore her and she spends most her time when she is not on show biting and headbutting the concrete around her pool. 
Since around the 1970s it has been illegal to capture Orca for captive, this means it is very hard for places like Sea World et al to get new DNA to help with breeding the captives Orca they do have, as most of them are already related.  Morgan is an excellent way to gain fresh DNA into the captive Orca breeding pool.  Many people's fear is that now Morgan is 6 years old the Spanish parks next move will be to get Morgan pregnant and then claim her unfit for being placed back into the wild therefore cermenting her lifetime sentence in captivity.  The court case in Spain is the last attempt to get Morgan freed and to show the courts that Morgan's family has been recognised and the expertises know exactly where to release her to enable her to re-join her family after all these years.

http://www.orcaresearch.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whale
http://www.freemorgan.com/



 



Hauraki Gulf......NZ Common Dolphins

So other than art and photography, I love animals (and books and travelling) and something that is so amazing about New Zealand, other than the geographical aspect of it - and the fact it is the world's only natural playground with so many things to do in one place - it has some wonderful animals of all kind.

I thought I would share some pictures of (New Zealand) Common Dolphins taken in the Hauraki Gulf, Auckland , they are just beautiful, so playful and just elegant.  I've watched them feeding and playing around the boat.  I could watch them for hours.....just perfect......

 

About 3 weeks ago just off Takapuna and Browns Bay (North Shore, Auckland) a rare Southern Right Whale came into the Bay and gave birth. Here are a couple of pictures.  She was still spotted around the Hauraki Gulf a week later with the calf.

 

 

Also, on the 24th August along the Northland coast, Tutukaka Harbour, a pod of Orca were spotted having breakfast.

The Orca around New Zealand are the only ones in the world that eat Stingrays.  They are often seen around the Coromandel as well and especially in Stingray Bay - if you go there early in the mornings (6.30am) in a kayak you can see loads of stingray sunning themselves in the shallows and if you are lucky enough to be there at the right time, you can watch the Orca come in and take the stingray.  I'm hoping to be heading out that way again now the Spring is here, so I'll have my camera ready and my fingers crossed.  Just beautiful.

In October I'm all set to do a Marine Mammal Medic course, which once passed will enable me to put myself on to the National Database and be called up for any strandings that are discovered around the two islands.  PRICELESS.