The Department of Conservation is calling for sightings of a humpback whale entangled in fishing gear off the Otago coast.
A group of University of Otago staff and students spotted the whale while on a postgraduate field trip about 10km off the Karitane coast, north of Dunedin, yesterday.
The whale had a line wrapped around its body and tail and was trailing a buoy while swimming slowly north.
Doc ranger Mike Morrissey, who leads the South Island large whale disentanglement team, asked boaties to report any sightings of the whale.
He urged them not to get too close, do anything that would disturb the whale or try to disentangle it themselves, as that would be "very dangerous''.
"It can be dangerous and removing the buoy makes it more difficult for our trained team to carry out the whale disentanglement procedures.
"People seeing the whale can assist our rescue response by staying with the whale, monitoring it and advising of its exact location for our disentanglement team to get to it.''
Sightings could be expected off the South Island's east coast over the coming days, as humpbacks made their annual migration north to tropical waters at this time of year.
Any attempt by Doc staff to free the whale would only be carried out when it was safe to do so, which required sea conditions "not being too rough'' and enough daylight.
The procedure could take several hours and it was not safe to disentangle whales in darkness, he said.
