Kaumātua and expert in whale recovery, Hori Parata has flensed close to 500 whales and said from the moment the tohorᾱ washes upon the shore, whales must be acknowledged as whānaunga who have returned to us based off the relationship of the tohorᾱ and the kauri tree which saw Tāne (God of forest) gift the whale to Tangaroa (God of sea). Hori was just seven years old when he attended his first mass stranding, a beaching of porpoises in New Zealand’s Northland, their cries screeching through the air on the deserted stretch of sand.

Parata is renowned in New Zealand as the leading Māori whale expert, called on by tribes around the country for cultural guidance as marine strandings become increasingly complex and fatal.
“Man’s greed in the ocean is hurting the whales,” says Parata, a fierce and uncompromising elder of the Ngātiwai tribe of eastern Northland.