The Woman Who Swims with Killer Whales Natural World

They're eight metres long...

..weigh six tonnes...

..and are one of the ocean's most feared killers.

Ambush hunters, no prey is too big for them.

Most would consider it madness to enter the water with them.

But one extraordinary woman thinks differently.

Woo-hoo-hoo!

Wow! That was incredible!

I get called all sorts of names for getting in the water with the orca - crazy, reckless, irresponsible.

Ingrid Visser is the only researcher in the world to swim with wild orca,

or killer whales as they're also known.

They spend less than 10% of their lives at the surface, so if you want to really want to understand what

they're doing, it makes sense to get in the water with them.

Ingrid's maverick approach is revolutionising our understanding of orca behaviour.

She's discovered New Zealand's orca are critically endangered.

And this year, she's witnessed an unusually high number of deaths.

MAN CHANTS

'We've absolutely no idea why he died, if it was from natural causes.'

Now she's on a one-woman mission to find out what's going on.

If I had to, I would give my life for those animals.

I would do anything for them to protect them.

I really would.

TELEPHONE RINGS

Orca Hotline, Ingrid speaking.

Ah-ha. Oh, great. Whereabouts are they?

Ingrid responds to all orca sightings within a 200-mile radius of her remote base.

I've set up a toll-free number for people to call the Orca Hotline, and, ideally, when people see the animals,

they give me a call and that gives me a heads up and time to be able to get out to them before they move on.

With orca capable of moving up to 100 miles in a single day, she's got to react fast.

I guess you can sort of think of my life as being a bit like being a doctor on call,

24 hours a day, seven days a week and I kind of like it that way, actually.

Ingrid's discovered less than 200 orca live along New Zealand's 9,000 miles of coastline.

With their nearest neighbours thousands of miles away in Australia

and the Antarctic, they're extremely isolated.

Following up on every call and photographing every orca

she sees is key to monitoring the health of this tiny population.

They should be here somewhere.

They could be anywhere.

After three hours searching, Ingrid and her assistant, Wendy Turner,

find the orca a few hundred metres off shore.

There they are. Excellent.

And, incredibly, they head straight for them.

-Look at this! Here they come, here they come! Look at this!

-Oh, wow!

The first animal to arrive is a young female called Splash.

Hey, guys!

Following close behind is a big male called Rua.

That's nice. Hi, Rua.

I've known Rua since I first started the research and he was

an adult male then, so I've figured that he's certainly well older than me.

We know that orca can live at least 60, possibly even

80 years, so we can think of Rua almost like a granddad, really.

It's nice to see him.

Ingrid knows most of New Zealand's orca by sight.

She recognises them by the shape of their fins and the unique patterns on their bodies.

Oh, look, and there's more over there.

Crikey, it's like orca soup out here.

Today, more than 20 are here.

-Did you see who it was yet?

-Yep.

-Looked like Yin and Putita.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

Seeing this many is very unusual.

It's a tenth of New Zealand's entire population.

-Let's see if we can get some fin IDs on these guys.

-We've Ben up now.

-Yeah, OK, great.

-He's gone down.

Taking photo IDs of the orca is the only way Ingrid can monitor their numbers.

There he is.

Porky, Wa-hoo!

And that's him there.

But observing these majestic creatures from above the water isn't enough for her.

OK?

Ingrid's taken her science to a whole new level.

With teeth ten centimetres long and jaws that could tear her in two,

Ingrid is entering the lair of the ocean's top predator.

A single blow from their tail can kill.

Ingrid's the only scientist in the world to observe orca underwater like this.

But it's not fear she feels.

I've swum with a whole range of marine mammals and they're

all magical in their own way, but there's just something about orca.

There is this real thing when you make eye contact with them underwater,

and you can't begin to describe it, really.

You can really see that they have a playful side as well,

which is quite amazing when you know how powerful they are.

When they come up right next to you, you almost get the feeling like it's a bus driving right past you.

Yet there's still such a grace about them, such a style when

they move under the water that you don't feel like they're aggressive

or anything like that, and there's just this magical feeling as they swim by.

Everything we know about New Zealand's orca comes from this woman's fearless research.

Recently, she's discovered her orca call to each other using a unique dialect.

And while most orca stay in the same pods for life, Ingrid's orca mix around much more.

The New Zealand orca are completely unique.

Genetically they're different, acoustically they're different,

but also the big thing for me is that behaviourally they're different.

Woo-hoo-hoo! Wow!

That was incredible! Woo!

It's almost like...

orca soup down there, there's so many of them.

And they're just rolling all over each other, and socialising.

It's just amazing.

You can really tell just how strong the social bonds are because they're touching each other and...

It's just amazing!

And then they're swimming right past me and looking up and...

Wow! OK, Wendy, that was pretty cool.

I think we're going to head home now because I've got some good pictures, and I think I got a photo of

the underbelly of that young one, so we'll be able to tell whether it's a boy or a girl, so that's great. Woo!

Ingrid's base is this remote farm, where she's lived most of her life.

It was here walking on these cliffs that her love of orca first developed.

I've been obsessed with orca ever since I can remember.

At five or six years old, I knew I was going to work with them and they're just such amazing animals.

And I used to come out here on the cliffs and look for them and just try and catch a glimpse of them,

and now I've grown up a bit and I get to live my dream, which is pretty amazing.

Obviously, there's risks working with any wild animal and orca are no different.

But I'm finding out things that nobody else knows about them, so I consider those risks are worth it.

I've been described as obsessive, crazy,

and lots of other things about these animals, and I'm comfortable with that.

I don't mind being obsessed about orca, and long may it last.

As night falls, Ingrid downloads the photos from the day's dive.

The average group size for the New Zealand orca population is between six to twelve,

so today getting out there and seeing 20-plus animals is pretty amazing.

There was likely a couple of individual groups that formed this super-group,

and I don't get to see that very often, so it was pretty special.

Ingrid's groundbreaking photo ID work has revealed New Zealand is

home to less than 200 orca and they live here all year round.

Her findings forced the New Zealand government

to change their conservation status from common to critical.

But despite more than eight years of protection, the population shows no signs of growing.

Why is a mystery.

And now Ingrid fears her orca may be even more fragmented than she first thought.

The orca here look like they're in three separate populations,

so we've got a North Island population where we are,

and then we've got a South Island population

and we've got one that sort of goes all over the place.

Some of the threats that New Zealand orca face include pollution,

over-fishing of their food, also destruction of the habitat that they hunt in.

If we had one environmental disaster, one oil spill, we could wipe out the whole population,

so they're right on the brink.

Ingrid's work has never been more important.

TELEPHONE RINGS

Orca Hotline, Ingrid speaking.

Oh, hi, Ingrid.

-It's Dave Ashby here.

-Hello.

Ingrid, I've just been doing a spot of fishing off Matapouri Bay and I think I've spotted a pod of orca.

Oh, fantastic. OK. How many do you think there are?

I think there's about five.

Brilliant. I'm on my way.

Thanks for the call.

Tutukaka coastguard radio.

Tutukaka coastguard radio. This is Zulu Mike Romeo 4506,

Zulu Mike Romeo 4506 Orca Research. Do you copy?

Research, this is coastguard radio. Go ahead.

We're just heading up the coast.

We have two POB. We're not sure what time we'll be back yet, but we'll give you a call when we return, over.

Following up on every call is the only way that Ingrid can build up

a detailed picture of the orcas' lives, where they go, what they do.

It's research that could reveal why the population isn't growing.

Hang on, hold on!

Here she comes!

Woo, yee-ha!

Her search often takes her more than 20 miles offshore

and into the volatile waters of the Southern Ocean.

-There they are!

-Oh, yeah, I see you there!

Yep.

Come on up, guys.

Oh, that's Funky Monkey. Who else is out here, though?

GPS is 174 31439 east.

We're just to the south of Matapouri Bay.

Animals are slow-travelling as we head south.

There is Funky Monkey here and... three or four others.

Moving steadily down the coast, they're heading for one of their favourite feeding grounds.

What are you doing? What are you doing?

Yep, she's coming up.

Here's a foot. Do you want a foot?

What's that foot doing?! Whoa. You're a cutie.

-Upside down!

-Look at that nice tail.

Excellent. Oh, and we've got more in front.

The pod are part of the 70-strong North Island group and some of her favourite characters.

There's Funky Monkey! Yay!

So Funky Monkey,

he's got this really, really wobbly fin, and he's just gone through his

whole teenage growth spurt thing and his dorsal fin is really wobbly.

I've known him since he was a tiny little baby.

It's really fun to watch them growing up.

It's only the males that have such big fins, and not all are this friendly.

Some of them, no matter how long I've known them,

they just swim right past the boat and they're doing their orca thing,

and then there's others who, my boat turns up and they're racing over and they want to play.

OK, I'm going to drop over here, see what she'll do.

Ah, tail.

A young female called Pirate approaches the boat.

Just five years old, she's followed closely by her mum, Salty.

Oh, Mum's coming in, too. You're coming in for a play as well, are you? Hello.

Ingrid greets them by slapping the water and blowing bubbles.

Here, here. Come on.

Incredibly, the orca often blow bubbles back at her.

Come on. I mean, this is the thing that fascinates me

about these animals - they're just so curious.

I'm not feeding her, but she's just interested in what we're doing.

-Hey, hello!

-Blowing bubbles, the orca are mimicking Ingrid.

Ah, what a little cutie! Come on!

Far from being ruthless killers, this remarkable interaction shows

just how inquisitive and gentle wild orca can be.

Hello. Oh, you're a little calmer, aren't you?

Not so excited. Yeah.

There we go.

So it's about three o'clock now and we've been following them all the way

down this coastline, they're slow-travelling.

I'm hoping that they're going to go into the little harbour that's just ahead of us.

So I'm going to get geared up now just in case.

Lined up in almost military formation,

Salty, Pirate, Funky Monkey and two others enter the shallow bay.

They've come here to hunt.

If Ingrid's lucky, she'll see them take on a very unusual prey.

She's discovered New Zealand's orca hunt rays.

There's no other population of orca in the world that we know of

that specialises in rays to the extent that the New Zealand orca do,

so that really makes them very, very unique.

Sensing the danger, the ray heads for the shallows, pursued by Salty and her calf Pirate.

In this shallow water, the orca must watch out.

They have the highest incidence of stranding in the world.

It's very high-risk hunting for these animals.

They can also run the risk of getting stung.

Sinking into the kelp, the ray takes cover.

Others will not be so lucky.

Ingrid's found the orca use a variety of techniques to hunt rays.

Lying vertically, Salty deliberately blows out air to sink to the bottom.

Hovering over the ray is extremely dangerous.

At least one orca that I know of has been killed from ray barbs.

With a surgeon's precision, she holds the ray by the tip of its tail.

Now harmless, it's unable to sting her.

Around the world, orca specialise in hunting different prey.

Skills are passed down from generation to generation.

It will be many years before five-year-old Pirate perfects how to hunt rays.

Opting for a different technique, Funky Monkey deliberately flips the ray onto its back.

This basically induces what's called tonic immobility, and so the ray just relaxes

and this allows the orca to carry the ray over to another orca who can then bite it in the head and kill it.

As Pirate joins him, he allows her to share his catch.

Food sharing like this is rare in the animal kingdom, but amongst orca it's commonplace.

Ingrid's discovered a staggering 80% of the New Zealand orca's diet comes from eating rays...

..and she's got a hunch their unusual taste for them might be a real cause for concern.

Two hours later, the orca enter one of New Zealand's busiest waterways, Whangarei Harbour.

-Keep an eye out behind us, see if there are any more, Wendy.

-Yes.

GPS is 35 49 977...

174 29 376.

We've just come past the wharves and we're heading down towards the refinery.

They've been feeding on rays.

We've seen them take at least 15 rays so far.

With its shallow, silty bottom, conditions here are perfect for the bottom-feeding rays.

But feeding in this highly industrialized area may not be good for the rays or the orca.

A lot of people think of New Zealand as being a clean, green country, but in fact we actually have

a few issues with pollutants from industrial areas washing out

into the harbours, agricultural run-off, and even from cars that are parked in the street.

When it rains, the oil that drips out of the sump,

goes into the drains and comes down into these harbours.

You've got the filter-feeding animals like scallops that are in the harbour,

then you've got the rays that feed on the scallops, and then you've got the orca that feed on the rays.

The orca are ending up with a lot of pollutants in their bodies, but just how much, that's the trick.

We don't really know. So I'm really keen to try and find out how much is being passed across to the animals.

Ten years ago, a study was done on pollutant levels in New Zealand.

While the waters were relatively clean,

it found raised levels of industrial chemicals like PCBs and the banned pesticide DDT in the harbours.

It's a problem that's mirrored around the world.

The sediments are where many of the contaminants end up.

Once in the food chain, they bind to body fats like blubber.

Virtually impossible to break down, they can cause serious health problems.

The only way Ingrid can check on her orcas' health, is to test them.

It's early winter, and Ingrid gets some bittersweet news.

A dead orca has been found on a beach several hours north of her base.

The report is that it's a sub-adult male, and it's almost certainly going

to be an individual that I know, and obviously I'm going to be cut up

about that side of things, but in terms of the science, this provides a really unique opportunity.

When orca die, they typically sink, so to find one on the beach like this is really rare.

It's an exceptional opportunity to take some blubber samples to test for pollutants.

The challenge is that all of New Zealand's coastline

falls under the protection of different Maori tribes.

And with whales believed to be the spirits of their ancestors,

Ingrid's chances of getting her precious samples are in the balance.

After driving through the day, Ingrid arrives as the Maori chief

begins his final prayer for the dead orca.

MAORI CHANTING

His song thanks the gods for their gift of the whale and the return of their ancestor's spirit.

When I walked up to that male on the beach, I definitely knew who it was.

I could recognise the notch on his fin and it was very clear who it was immediately.

I had seen him only about a year and a half previously in the Whangarei Harbour,

not far from my home.

Of course, you don't want any of them to die.

This young male is the third fatality this year.

Even more are likely to have died at sea, their bodies never found.

In 20 years of research, Ingrid's never had a year like it.

If you consider that there's less than 200 animals

in the whole New Zealand population, that's really pushing things and it could tip them over the brink.

Is it just coincidence or is something more alarming going on?

Ingrid's only chance of finding out is to do a necropsy.

The problem is the procedure would desecrate the whale's body.

Sorry.

No, I understand.

It's disappointing, but I understand.

I tried to explain it as best as I could.

No, I understand.

I understand and I appreciate the support, I really do.

-I want to hongi you.

-Yes.

-OK.

She's only allowed to do an external examination and take a small blubber sample.

We've absolutely no idea why he died, if it was from natural causes

or if somebody did something to him,

and that was kind of why I really wanted to do the necropsy.

Not only could we ascertain then why he died, but we could also

try and work out so many different things about him.

But despite the setback, this small sample could still reveal why he died.

If pollutants played a role, they will show up in this fatty blubber.

There we go.

Earlier in the year, Ingrid also took samples from this two-day-old calf.

Its cause of death is also unknown.

It could have easily been abandoned by its mother, it could have been

attacked by a shark, it could have pollutants.

We just don't know yet, so it's going to be interesting to try and find out.

Back at base, Ingrid calls one of the world's leading marine toxicology experts, Dr Peter Ross,

about analysing the samples.

New Zealand's orca have never been tested before.

I'm really concerned about the fact that the New Zealand orca are coming inside

the harbours here and there's a lot of run-off from the harbours...

Playing heavily on her mind is that around the world,

some orca have tested positive to very high levels of PCBs, DDTs and even some flame retardants.

We do know that these chemicals cause problems.

They cause problems in humans...

-Yep.

-They cause problems in laboratory animals,

and we have some evidence from wild marine animals that these chemicals

are associated with effects on reproduction, on the immune system, on normal growth and development.

Sitting at the top of the food chain, hunters like orca are especially at risk.

These are Norwegian orca, and studies have been done to

look at the contaminants inside them,

and they've found that they have very high levels of PCBs, which are a type

of industrial chemical, used primarily in transformers, some types of industrial oils and in sealants.

It also turns out that they have the highest level of contaminants of any animal in the high Arctic.

These are transient orca that specialise in feeding on marine mammals

and live up the west coast of North America and their bodies

are so full of pollutants that they actually have to be treated as toxic, hazardous waste when they die.

We know that pollutants are having a major impact on marine mammals

around the world, and I can only hope the orca down here in New Zealand aren't exposed to so many chemicals.

While most of New Zealand's orca diet appears to come from rays,

Ingrid's discovered there's one other animal they hunt that could also be cause for concern.

These photos are Ingrid's only evidence that her orca are also shark hunters.

The concern about them feeding on sharks is that sharks are high in the food chain as well,

so they themselves probably have high levels of contaminants which is getting passed on to the orca.

The samples will be sent to Canada for testing.

It will be at least six months before the results come in.

They could reveal vital clues why the orca died and why New Zealand's tiny population isn't growing.

Most of Ingrid's call-outs are for orca, but she's also on standby for any whale in trouble.

A call's come in from the Department of Conservation.

A humpback whale is tangled in fishing nets.

If we get lucky, we'll be able to find it and then cut the rope off.

If we're unlucky, we won't even be able to find it.

It's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack out here, but we've got to try.

I want that friendly little whale.

With the help of a spotter plane, Ingrid and the team start searching the coast,

and by mid-morning they find the whale.

Up in front of their boat.

-Did you see it?

-Yep.

-OK.

It's a female and the fishing net is badly tangled around her body.

Nets like these are a threat to all marine mammals, including orca.

If they don't get the rope off, she will die.

I think it's still around its mouth. Look, yeah, it's its mouth too.

She's exhausted, but it's too dangerous to attempt to free her.

Attaching several buoys to the whale is the only safe way to slow her down and get alongside her.

She is really starting to slow down.

When she's surfacing, it's multiple breaths now, and she's really starting to chuff like this,

which is good for us, hard on her, but the quicker we can get this done, the quicker we can let her go.

Right, she's slowed right down, look at that.

This close, there's a real risk 25 tonnes of whale could flip the boat over.

Working as fast as they can, piece by piece, the net is cut free.

Crikey, yeah, it's pretty rotten, huh? It's been there a while.

There's some barnacles growing on it.

-Growing on it, yeah.

-Yeah.

Two hours later, with most of the net now free, the humpback makes a bid for freedom.

Oh, my gosh! Whoo!

I'm getting goose bumps. You just...

can't put that sort of thing into words.

It's nothing money can buy, and you just...

It's such a relief.

How do you ever describe something like that?

'Heading for a high of 15 degrees today.

'Not a particularly warm one, but nice and fine outside.'

It's now midwinter, and Ingrid's had no sightings of orca for weeks.

'This is Northland's Classic Hits with Will and Jacks,

'and next we have someone who has an unusual job.'

With the help of local radio and flyers,

Ingrid appeals to the public to call in with any sightings.

'So how reliant on the public are you?'

'Well, basically they're my eyes and my ears.

'I can't find the animals without their help.'

Soon the Orca Hotline is inundated with calls.

A pod of eight orca have been spotted

once again near the mouth of Whangarei Harbour.

All to port.

It's a chance for Ingrid to observe them hunting at close quarters.

Keep coming round.

Come off speed?

-Come down.

-Coming down.

There's two there. Funky Monkey's coming in and Ben,

so there'll be four of them there.

Excellent. Here they come. Animals are just here. Out of gear.

Funky Monkey, with his distinctive twisted fin, is back.

Seeing him visit this busy harbour for the second time in just six weeks is a real concern.

Keep coming hard to starboard.

-I want to see if we can get right in there, because this current is surprisingly strong.

-OK.

Swimming ahead of him are Salty and her calf, Pirate.

While most New Zealand orca mix around, Ingrid's noticed this trio

seem to like each other's company and are frequently together.

She suspects they are probably all related.

Orca only calve every five years.

Their slow birth rate makes them very vulnerable.

Joining them today is 30-year-old Ben.

His fin was ripped in two by a boat propeller.

-Get ready, out of gear, go.

-Out of gear, gone. Load and draw.

With the orca in hunting mode, Ingrid must be extra careful.

One blow from six tonnes of orca could easily kill her.

It's got a ray in its mouth.

It's got a ray.

It's rich pickings, as Funky Monkey, Salty and Pirate catch ray after ray.

Then Ingrid sees Funky Monkey abandoning a part-eaten ray.

It's a great break.

I've got a ray. So can you just grab the camera?

Yep, sure.

Just drop it in the box for me. Excellent.

So I've just got the remains of an eagle ray

and you can see here...

where the orca have punctured it with their teeth

and where they've killed it.

The really amazing thing is that they've ripped off half of it and...

Whoa, it's still alive!

The other half is still here and part of the liver is missing.

And what I want to be able to do is take this and get it analysed to see if there's any poisons

or toxins in the ray that's being transferred through to the orca.

So this is a really amazing find to get.

Like the orca, New Zealand's rays have never been tested.

Woo-hoo, yeah! Excellent!

This sample will now join the whale blubber for analysis.

OK, in gear, Wendy.

Back at base, Ingrid's noticing a pattern with her orcas' movements.

So these red dots represent sightings for the orca over the past research

season, and you can see that they're clustered around the harbours.

In the last year, 60% of Ingrid's sightings have been in harbours like Whangarei.

Until the test results come back, she has no idea if the orcas' love of hunting in harbours is a worry.

With winter storms lashing the coast, Ingrid is housebound.

It can be really, really frustrating how long it takes to process these samples.

It can take months, literally.

And the hard thing is not knowing whether it's going to be a good result or a bad result.

You know something's coming, but you don't know what it is.

TELEPHONE RINGS Orca Hotline, Ingrid speaking.

Then, the Orca Hotline delivers some terrible news which pulls Ingrid away from her research.

I've just had a report that there's about 60 pilot whales stranded on the beach,

about three hours north of here.

As the tide comes up, the animals, if they're in the surf, they'll actually end up drowning,

so we need to get there and we need to get people to help the animals as quick as possible.

Every time I get a call, I always try and go.

Awaiting Ingrid is a scene of devastation.

Oh...

58 pilot whales have stranded.

Most are already dead.

It's just a tragedy.

Look at the little baby.

This is North Island's second mass stranding this year, and the rescuers are overwhelmed.

-There's one still alive there.

-Where?

-There, that one. She's still alive.

-All right. Let's go, then.

This one, Wendy?

Getting the whales out of the surf is critical.

On their sides, their blow holes are submerged and they can't breathe.

Don't roll over! Don't roll over!

She'll drown if she lies on her side like this.

There's no reason she can't be held upright. Come on, girl.

There you go. Just hold her there.

Good girl. Hang in there. Don't give up!

We're just going to try and move another one with a mat, see if we can get a team

and lift it out of the surf, and come back for this one.

All right, she can breathe.

Now! That's a good girl.

One more of those, sweetie.

Go. Right, now let's try and position her better.

Yeah, that's better, huh?

Now, we're just going to roll you over and put the mat under you.

As the afternoon draws on, the death toll rises.

What triggered the stranding is a mystery,

but pilot whales are one of the most social creatures in the ocean.

Pod members are thought to stay together for life.

These incredibly tight family bonds may explain why pilot whales strandings are so bad.

What changes a stranding into a mass stranding

is this really intense social bonding that these animals have.

So if one goes up on the beach, then the whole group goes up, no matter what the peril is to them.

We've got 14 still alive.

You've got to think that this is almost like a mass car accident for these animals.

They know something tragic's happened, they know individual members of their family have died

and they grieve just like we do, so it's very, very stressful for them

and that's why we stay with them and we talk to them,

keep them calm and just, you know, try and reassure them in any way that we possibly can. I'm ever hopeful.

I think we can pull this off.

But just minutes later, one of the 14 survivors goes into a stress spasm.

It's OK. Hang in there.

Hang in there.

No. I think that's it, Floppy. I think that's it.

I'm so sorry, Wendy.

I'm so sorry.

It's not your fault.

He tried. God, he was a fighter.

Eventually, extra help arrives to lower the survivors back into the water.

Slapping the water, the rescuers try to encourage the whales to leave the shallows.

100 metres off shore, Ingrid stands by to help herd them out.

What a sight!

Don't know whether to laugh or cry, huh?

Out of the original pod of 58, 13 exhausted survivors, including the little baby,

slowly make their way out to sea.

As winter draws to a close, Ingrid's back on the water with her orca,

following their movement up and down the coast.

There he is. Oh, you little mongrel!

Come on, big guy. Come and have your picture taken.

Today, she's found three, and they're in playful mood.

-Oh, there's the juvie.

-There's the juvie.

-Nice one.

-They must be just sitting on the tail again.

Circling the boat and swimming upside down, they give Ingrid a spectacular welcome.

It's pretty hard to tell who's here at the moment because the animals are swimming away from us

and they're in the chop and it's a bit hard to see their fins,

so hopefully they'll come a bit closer and I'll be able to work out who it is.

It's just good to see them, no matter which ones it is.

Here she comes.

Come here, you. Come on.

Come on!

Show us your tummy so we can see if you're a boy or a girl!

Now they're heading into the coast. They are all over the place.

1450, very erratic movement, heading in, heading out, heading north, heading south.

I suspect that these guys are just milling around waiting for the other orca to turn up.

First report was of eight individuals and we've only got three here at the moment.

But there's a surprise for Ingrid.

-See, that one's got that new notch on it, Wendy?

-Yep.

It's interesting, you know, I don't recognise these individuals immediately.

Come on, give me your fin, please.

Yes.

That's the one with the notch.

Look at that.

Nice.

Ingrid soon identifies two of the orca, Venus and Miracle.

They're both from the 70-strong North Island population.

But the third remains a mystery.

I managed to get to get a fin ID of that new animal,

but the weather's coming this way. I'm going to have to head into it

to get back to port, so I'm going to have to leave now, unfortunately.

If she's a new addition to the population, it's exciting news.

Ingrid's orca may not be as isolated as she feared.

Despite the rough weather today, it was a good day for the research

because I managed to get a couple of really good photos of the female

I thought had a notch at the base of her fin, and sure enough she does.

And it's quite a distinctive notch and I've been through the catalogue.

I can't match her. That potentially means that she's new to the New Zealand population.

I don't know where she's come from, but that's pretty amazing after the recent death.

It's good to see some new faces.

Ingrid calls the new orca Storm.

And you can see here on her back she's got a healed scar, and it's sort of an oval scar,

and that is actually a bite from a cookiecutter shark, and we don't typically get cookiecutter sharks

here in New Zealand and it's very infrequently that we see bites on the individual orca here,

so it indicates that she's come from somewhere else and is a new animal for the New Zealand population.

So I don't know if she's going to stay, but I hope so.

With the population showing no signs of growth,

Storm's arrival is an exciting development.

Then comes bad news.

So the results are finally in after months of waiting and, unfortunately, it's not looking good.

The samples of both the rays and the orca have tested positive for hundreds of chemicals.

There were two samples that we sent off and one was the male on the beach.

He's tested really, really high for PCBs,

DDTs and also for flame retardants.

PCBs were banned here in New Zealand many years ago, decades ago now, but we're still seeing them showing up

in the New Zealand orca and that's really quite scary.

With the half-life of PCBs estimated to be up to 100 years, they could continue to affect

the health of Ingrid's orca for generations to come.

So the flame retardants, there's not so many of them in the animals at the moment, which is a good thing,

but the problem is that there's absolutely no restrictions on

the use of them and they mimic the problems that you get with PCBs.

Flame retardants are used in everything from clothes and computers to carpets and paint.

Leaching out from these products, they enter our oceans

and have been shown to reduce fertility in humans and animals.

In some parts of the world, their levels are doubling every three to four years.

Although New Zealand levels are low right now,

their presence is a real concern, as they are likely to rise.

So the young calf, she was only probably a couple of days old,

yet she's got relatively high concentrations of pollutants

in her body too and she would have got them from the mother, passed through the placenta.

So that means that her mother was really, really contaminated as well

and she's offloaded some of those on to the baby.

It's giving me the cold sweats, basically, looking at this stuff.

It's pretty scary.

So the big questions now really are, how serious are these pollution levels, what sort of impacts

is that going to have on the animals here in New Zealand

and did they actually contribute to the deaths of these two animals?

Ingrid discusses the results with toxicology expert Peter Ross.

These chemicals are highly unlikely to poison any of these animals,

but these concentrations could weaken the animals or alter their growth and development.

There might even be a risk of adverse effects on the reproductive health of both males and females.

We see relatively high concentrations and I would put these animals

among the most contaminated marine mammals in the southern hemisphere.

So we can't say that these contaminants

actually contributed to the death of the animals or they may have done, we don't really know.

Well, we don't know.

They're not acute poisons,

but they can make the animals more vulnerable to some of the things

that either mother nature or humankind throws at them.

Obviously, I wasn't expecting the results to be quite as dramatic as that.

There's some good news and some bad news, but,

taking the big picture, it's pretty overwhelming

and it's hard to know really where to go from here, especially just as a single individual.

You know, what can I do to try and protect these animals?

While the toxin levels are lower than those found in some of the North American pods,

their presence could well be one the reasons the population shows no signs of growth.

Starting at a local level, Ingrid begins her campaign

to raise awareness about the toxins in her orca.

PCBs and DDTs have been banned in New Zealand for a number of years now,

so hopefully eventually those aren't going to be such a problem.

But the flame retardants, they're a different story.

Unfortunately, they're not regulated in any way,

so I'm hoping from a governmental level, we'll be able to do something.

Ingrid's first step is to meet Sue Reed,

area manager for Whangarei Harbour at New Zealand's Department of Conservation.

Now we've got this information, what's happens next?

Well, short term, I'd like to get more samples. This is only two samples.

But the thing is it's indicative of what's likely to be going on for the whole population.

Long term, I'd like to look at trying to put some restrictions on the flame retardants.

Obviously, PCBs and DDTs are being controlled now.

'The meeting went really well. They were very interested in what I had to show them and tell them.

'It feels very positive where we're going to go from here.'

So this last year has been an absolute roller coaster of emotional highs and lows,

but it's ended on a positive because I'm now in a situation

that I know more about them and I can protect them better.

It's going to be a long haul trying to get some sort of regulations

in place for the flame retardants, but I think it's worth it.

And of course, you know, in terms of the global situation as well,

if New Zealand can lead the way, that would be really great.

Ingrid continues to study and swim with her beloved orca.

She is now also campaigning to ban the use of some flame retardants.

Her findings are a wake-up call to us all, to better protect our oceans

and pay heed to the widespread use of chemicals in our modern-day lives.

Orca have been around for thousands, if not millions, of years.

I want them to be around long after I've gone. I'm not going to rest until they're better protected.

The future for New Zealand's orca remains fragile.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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