Marine mammal sighting form: Conservation

Marine mammal sighting form

Use this online form to report a marine mammal sighting.

Your sighting will help us look after marine mammals by providing information about population sizes, breeding rates and movement patterns.

Call 0800 DOC HOT (0800 362 468) immediately if you see:

an entangled, stranded, or deceased marine mammal
a Hector's or Māui dolphin on the east coast of the North Island.

Online marine mammal sighting form

You must fill in fields marked with *

Privacy disclosure: To process your request or information, we need to collect personal information about you. We'll only use your information for this purpose and we'll follow the principles of the Privacy Act 2020. See our privacy and security statement.

Your details

Name

Phone number

Agency (if relevant) e.g. DOC, MPI, tourism operator

When was the sighting

Date of sighting (DD/MM/YYYY)

Time of sighting (HH:MM)

Where was the sighting

Region

Where were you when you sighted the animal?

Location (describe the location of the sighting)

Do you have a GPS location? Yes No

Latitude (Y; northing)

Longitude (X; easting)

Is this GPS data or an estimate

Distance from shore, in metres (if known; no ranges)

Describe the weather conditions, for example, wind, tide, sea state, swell, etc

Sighting information

Our live sighting form (PDF, 404K) may help you identify the type of mammal and species.

Type of animal Whale Dolphin Seal/sea lion Other Unknown

Select a species

Estimated total minimum number of animals seen (adults and juveniles)

Number of juveniles/calves

Is there anything else you can tell us about the sighting?

Add any extra details including behaviour of animal, direction they were travelling, length of animal, distinguishing features for species or individual identification. This is particularly useful if no photos were taken or photos aren’t great quality.

Photos and video

Upload a file below or send your photos and videos to marinemammals@doc.govt.nz

Files accepted: jpg, jpeg, png, pdf, doc, docx, mp4, mp3, avi, wmv. Files must be smaller than 100MB.

Do you have any photos or videos you wish to submit? Yes No

Upload a video or photo

Conditions of image use Any (Creative Commons) - including externals e.g. researchers DOC use only

Creative Commons Licence