200  Peachgrove Road

Southwell School

Room 19

22nd February 2017

Dear Mr Bill English

My name is Liv Davys and I would like to address to you the recent beaching of the whales at Farewell Spit .

I have seen lots of news footage of the strandings and it has made me really sad .The fact that many died was awful but I was very pleased that thanks to many people some of them managed to get out and into the sea .

My Mum and I looked into why the whales were doing this and there were some interesting points:

• The Pod leader is sick or lost .
• The Topography is not good for whale sonar
• When one is stuck others come to help and get stuck themselves

The main reason seemed to be the shape of Farewell spit and how the shape of the spit did not allow the whales sonar to work properly.  Then of course once the leader of the pod headed into the spit the others would so follow.  Farewell Spit is a big hook shape and has very shallow parts of the beach.  The hook shape means it is hard for the whales to get out.  The shallow water makes it hard for the whales to detect anything with their sonar.

I know that the Department of Conservation do a lot to try to make sure that strandings like this do not happen and when they do, they have lots of people that can help them, but I have a suggestions that may help.

Might it help to have large concrete blocks under water from D’Urville Island around the outside of Farewell Spit?  These concrete blocks will allow for the whale sonar to bounce off so they will not head into the spit.  These will be placed so that boats will know that they are there.  These will also let other marine animals and creatures make the blocks their home.  I do not know the cost of these but perhaps you could get your conservation team to look into this as an option.

The cost of trying to rescue these whales, as well as the disposal of them must be huge.  With lots of people trying to refloat the whales there is also the time they take off work that adds to the cost.

Another reason could be that the whales are hungry due to the lack of food from commercial fisheries over-fishing.  This is a whole other issue and one that many New Zealanders see as a very important problem.  I enjoy fishing with my dad and he has said there are not the same amount of fish around as there used to be.  We have a caravan at the Coromandel and  it is well known that commercial fisheries come through and take all of the fish - they do not care about the size or the species.  This also needs to be looked at but even more so, if it might also have something to do with the strandings.

I hope you will look kindly on my suggestions as I do not want to see something like this happen again.

Yours sincerely

Liv Davys