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Story: Marine conservation

Stranded whales

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Stranded whales

Volunteers help stranded whales at Pūponga, Farewell Spit, at the South Island’s north-west tip. In just a few generations New Zealanders evolved from whale killers to whale savers. The growing marine conservation movement was most visible in campaigns such as Save the Whale in the 1970s and 1980s, and the quest to ban wall-of-death (drift-net) fishing in the early 1990s. By the 2000s there was a strong lobby for the conservation of all creatures in some areas of the ocean.

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Department of Conservation

Reference: 10042603

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How to cite this page

Gerard Hutching and Carl Walrond, Marine conservation – Marine mammals, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/5807/stranded-whales (accessed 25 June 2026).

Story by Gerard Hutching and Carl Walrond, published 2 March 2009, updated 1 September 2015.