Dead whale carried on front of Maersk containership

A 14 meter whale was carried on the front of a Maersk container vessel, when it berthed at New Zealand’s Tauranga Harbour, on Wednesday, according to New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC).

The whale, believed to be a Bryde’s whale, was dead on the vessel’s bulbous bow. The container vessel came from Brisbane and it is not known where it encountered the whale.

DOC staff removed the carcass from the ship late Wednesday afternoon and secured it in a safe location in Tauranga Harbour overnight.

DOC Tauranga Rotorua District Operations Manager, Jeff Milham, said it appears to have just been ‘an unfortunate incident at sea’.