Speaking for orca

Since completing her doctorate on orca (the first scientific study of the mammals in New Zealand) in 2000, she’s been hard at work doing just that.

“We’ve got less than 200 New Zealand orca – a South Island population, North Island population and one that travels around both islands. And then there are the pelagic orca which are typically found way off shore, but which visit every so often,” she says, “to hunt for dolphins near our coastline. The more I learn about them – and the more time I spend with them – makes me realise just how little we know.

“But we’ve got to stop using the ocean as a great toilet and get rid of the belief that you can dump everything into it and it just disappears. Some New Zealand towns still flush raw sewage straight into the sea.