© Zane BroadbeltA whale shark found at Great Barrier Island.
A morning stroll on the beach turned into a bit of a spectacle when Zane Broadbelt suddenly spotted what looked to be a stranded whale.
He and his partner, Laura, were walking along the beach at Harataonga, on Great Barrier Island, when they made the discovery on Sunday.
"I just saw a lump in the sand," he told the
Herald.
On closer inspection, they realised it was a dead whale shark.
"It was about 6m long and looked like it had been there for about a week.
"I've never seen a whale shark before. It's not something you expect to see around here, especially at this time."
The Department of Conservation confirmed their staff responded to a public sighting of the dead whale shark last Thursday.
It was a significant find as although whale sharks migrate annually to New Zealand waters, this was the first recorded stranding in New Zealand, a DoC spokeswoman said.
Comment: There has been an uptick in sinkholes and other land deformations world wide. Not all of them can be attributed to underlying conditions such as limestone erosion. One might wonder if they are perhaps related to the Earth's slowing rotation, which would cause the lithosphere to slip as the rotational speed of Earth's different geological layers become mismatched.