Animals feature on our beach. There are often fish skeletons or just dead fish, sometimes a seal, live or dead, and even, on occasion, a dead whale.
Note: I’ve usually had to search the Internet to identify fish and animals. If you think I’ve got something wrong, please leave a comment with better info.
Seals
New Zealand fur seal/kekeno turn up from time to time. They can be hidden in driftwood or just look like driftwood themselves from a distance.
In 1978 fur seal/kekeno were fully protected by the Marine Mammals Protection Act. Take care, and keep dogs and children at least 20 metres away from any live seal.
This pointy-nosed seal has long pale whiskers and a body covered with two layers of fur. Their coat is dark grey-brown on the back, and lighter below; when wet kekeno look almost black. In some animals the longer upper hairs have white tips which give the animal a silvery appearance.
Adult females: maximum length 1.5 m, weight 30-50 kg.
Adult males: maximum length 2.5 m, weight 90-150 kg. …
On average, they live 14 to 17 years.
…Human activities are the cause of most threats to kekeno today. It is known that fur seals are incidentally captured and subsequently drown during trawling and long line fishing operations in New Zealand.
Whales
Unfortunately whales sometimes turn up dead on the beach — a pilot whale in 2010 and a minke whale in 2013.
Sharks
We see numerous small dead sharks on the beach — presumably thanks to fishing operations in the waters off the beach.
In January 2016 a male common thresher shark washed up just south of the Waiorongomai Stream. The tail was about as long as the body.
My thanks to Clinton Duffy of DoC who kindly correctly identified this shark from my photos. He says:
This is a subadult male common thresher shark (Alopias vulpinus) — you can tell it is a male by the two claspers (very thin in this case) extending off the pelvic fins either side of the vent.
This species is globally distributed in temperate to subtropical waters worldwide and is common around New Zealand. It breeds in coastal waters and small juveniles (about 1-1.5 m long) are commonly seen during summer in places like the Hauraki Gulf, Hawke Bay, the outer Marlborough Sounds and Tasman Bay. They feed on small schooling fishes like anchovy, pilchards and jack mackerel which they herd and stun with their tails. Maximum reported size for this species is 6 m total length (the tail makes up about half of that).
Porcupine fish
There are often dead porcupine fish on the beach.
This fish also contains the powerful nerve toxin tetrodotoxin (TTX) in its skin and intestines.
Beware the Puffer Fish – OTAKI MAIL (February 2015) says:
We recently had a case of poisoning in a dog that had been walking on Otaki Beach. The dog had been to the beach 3-4 hours earlier and developed muscle tremors, shaking and incoordination. Other poisons can cause similar signs but we induced vomiting and saw large numbers of puffer fish spines, which confirmed the diagnosis. In more severe cases paralysis, seizures and death may follow.