Scuba Diving club,
Southern California
Sea Sabres
New Zealand town
mourns diver who died trying to save whale
A New Zealand town is mourning a popular local diver,
thought to have drowned doing what he loved - saving whales.
The search continued yesterday June 17 2003 for Tom
Smith, 38, who has been missing since Sunday morning after he was hit by the
tail of a humpback whale he was trying to free from a craypot line.
He is presumed to have drowned.
The incident happened off Kaikoura, a town on New
Zealand's South Island popular for whale watching.
An air and sea search on Sunday was unsuccessful and
resumed yesterday.
Police and the Kaikoura Coastguard were told Mr Smith had
been struck by the whale's tail while trying to untangle the craypot line.
Whale Watch Kaikoura spokesman Thomas Kahu said the
distressed humpback whale was seen by a whale watching crew and Mr Smith had
gone out to help.
While he was trying to free the mammal, it did a
"lob tail" - flicked its tail out of the water, hitting the surface -
and afterwards Mr Smith was nowhere to be seen, Mr Kahu said.
"The diver was very keen to release the whale from
its predicament," Mr Kahu said. "It was pretty much driven by good
intentions which went terribly wrong."
Humpback Whales
Endangered
The humpback whale is black or
gray with a white, grooved underbelly. Megaptera means 'giant wings' and
refers to the humpback’s large front flippers, which can reach a length of 15
feet.
Humpback whales measure 35 to 48
feet long and weigh up to 65 tons. The female is larger than the male.
In the 1870s humpback whales
numbered an estimated 125,000, but early in the 20th century whaling
drastically reduced the population. Today humbacks number approximately 5,000
to 7,500.
The humpback whale is capable of
living up to 95 years.
Humpbacks are found in all the
world's oceans.
Humpback whales migrate annually
from the tropics to polar regions.
Humpbacks sometimes engage in
social hunting in which several whales encircle a school (group) of fish and
blow bubbles that form a 'net' around the fish, then move in with their
mouths open to devour their prey. Their favorite foods include krill
(shrimp-like crustaceans) and small schooling fish such as herring and
mackerel. A humpback consumes between 2,000 and 9,000 pounds of fish and
krill a day.
The 'songs' of humpback whales are
complex vocalizations made only by the males. Humpbacks are well known for
hurling their massive bodies out of the water in magnificent displays called
breaching. Scientists are unsure why humpbacks breach, but believe it may be
related to courtship or play activity.
Humpback whales mate during winter
migration to warmer waters. Eleven to 12 months later the female gives birth
to a single calf, weighing about two tons and measuring up to 13 feet long.
Humpback whales were considered
too difficult to hunt during the early whaling days because of their speed
and tremendous size. However, with the introduction of factory ships and the
harpoon gun in the 1920's, the humpback whales were hunted intensively. By
the 1960's they were nearly extinct.
Whales suffer from illegal
whaling, entanglement in fishing nets and death from pollution.
*CITES, Appendix I, Marine Mammal
Protection Act, Endangered Species Act *Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an international treaty with
more than 144 member countries. Appendix I listed species cannot be traded
commercially. Appendix II listed species can be traded commercially only if
trade does not harm their survival. |
A
Whale Watch Kaikoura vessel carrying 30 mainly British tourists was near Mr
Smith's boat at the time.
The
whale was left swimming attached to the line, and authorities said it could
drown if it became too stressed and tired from trying to free itself.
Department
of Conservation spokesman Dave Hayes said if the humpback was unable to free
itself, another attempt would be made to cut the fishing line.
Mr
Smith ran a successful fishing charter business. He was married with two
children, with another child due to be born within the next few months.
His
father-in-law Brian Betts, who was with him when he went missing, said he lived
for the sea and was always helping someone out.
"He
was passionate about the sea. Even when he wasn't on the boat, he was always
out diving. That was where he would have wanted to be," Mr Betts said.
Family
members were gathering in Kaikoura from as far afield as Australia, he said.
A
former commercial fisherman, Mr Smith said in a newspaper interview in July
2001 he had always had a great love of whales and dolphins.
He
helped rescue two humpback whales in June 2001 and June 2002.
The
2001 rescue made headlines around New Zealand and Mr Smith received a
certificate of merit from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals for his brave actions.
After
freeing the humpback whale from crayfish-pot ropes in June 2001, he told a
newspaper: "I was pretty scared."
He
said he believed the whale knew it was being rescued.
"The
first thing I did was make eye contact with its dinner plate-sized eye. It let
out a roar of distress.
"It
started whistling as I started to cut the loop of rope from around its head. I
dumped the scuba gear back on the boat and hopped back in to cut the other
tangled rope from the tail.
"When
it stopped moving, I approached. The whale dropped its head and raised its
tail, waiting for me to do the cutting. They talk about how whales know you are
going to help them - I believe it."
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Posted August 21, 2003