By Bob McNeill
Whatever happened to Nobby?
He is the Orca, or Killer Whale, who stranded himself on a Tauranga beach last year, and since then seems to have been trying to set some kind of record for circumnavigating New Zealand.
For much of this year, Nobby has been missing.
But Orca expert Ingrid Visser has been trying to keep tabs on him.
Nobby surfaced again just a few days ago – he was seen in Endeavour Inlet in the Marlborough Sounds.
He is a 25-year-old five metre, five tonne Orca who loves to eat stingrays.
Ingrid Visser, a marine biologist, probably knows more about Orcas than anyone else in the country.
She met Nobby just over a year ago, when Nobby became stranded on Papamoa Beach, near Tauranga.
They drew a crowd of 2,000 people to watch the rescue.
After a day-long rescue effort, Nobby was finally pulled and pushed and floated back out to sea.
Ms Visser stayed with him until he disappeared over the horizon – she was in no danger.
"They're taught by their family members and their social peers what to eat and how to catch it, and people have just never been on the menu. So if you consider that if food is a very positive reward, you've also got to consider that we could become part of the menu, and therefore you have to treat them with the respect that they deserve," says Ms Visser.
Since the stranding, Nobby has been on the move – to the Bay of Islands, then Whitianga.
Then it is believed he circumnavigated the North Island before turning up in the Hokianga.
Then he was seen in Whangarei Harbour, before heading for the Poor Knights Islands. He returned to the Bay of Islands and was last seen in the Hauraki Gulf.
Ms Visser says Orca strandings, like Nobby's, make the marine mammals more interested in human beings.
“And sure enough, Orca that we have rescued in the past have actually come right up to my boat, for instance, and they'll let me rub them down like you'd rub down a horse,” says Ms Visser.
No one has ever been killed by an Orca, but Ms Visser says there are rules about approaching killer whales.
Legally, you're not allowed to swim with them.
"You have to stay 50 metres away from them in a boat and you cannot swim with them without a special permit. But if you are in the water and they come up to you, they haven't read the rules, so therefore you're not breaking the rules, and neither are they," Ms Visser says.
So Nobby is still out there somewhere, possibly looking for a mate; but he will have to brush up on his navigational skills before any female Orca will even consider striking up a relationship with him.
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