"Thu 3 Jan 2019 02.00 EST
W
hale whisperer Hori Parata was just seven years old when he attended his first mass stranding, a beaching of porpoises in New Zealand’s Northland, their cries screeching through the air on the deserted stretch of sand.
Seven decades later, Parata, 75, has now overseen more than 500 strandings and is renowned in New Zealand as the leading Mâori whale expert, called on by tribes around the country for cultural guidance as marine strandings become increasingly complex and fatal.
“Man’s greed in the ocean is hurting the whales,” says Parata, a fierce and uncompromising elder of the Ngâtiwai tribe of eastern Northland....
“When will we talk about what is hurting these animals out on the sea? They are drowning out there, they can’t breathe, they beach themselves to be with the Aunties.”
Ngâtiwai believe the whales beach when they are ready to die and want to return to their families, the Mâori people. Then, their human families use the whales’ gift of their bodies for sacred carvings, for traditional medicines, and even for compost...."
Much more at link.
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