A documentary about the history of whaling in New Zealand is about to have its premiere screening.
Tess Brosnan spent five weeks in rough seas chasing her cast around Cook Strait.
Growing up in Golden Bay, she developed a fascination with whales. She took that curiosity a step further when she started researching whaling in New Zealand and began making a documentary about it.
Ms Brosnan believes that "it's really important that Kiwis know about the history of whaling in New Zealand and know what happened at the hands of Russians and the Japanese".
To do that, Ms Brosnan interviewed former whalers-turned-conservationists, including Peter Perano, whose family for a long time were blamed for wiping out New Zealand's humpback whale population.
"The Perano whalers were in no way responsible for the demise of humpback whales," says Ms Brosnan."The Perano whaling station in their best year caught 200 whales. They weren't catching very many at all."
Ms Brosnan says figures produced by a Russian whistleblower have proved that Japanese and Russian whalers killed thousands of humpback whales off the coast of New Zealand
"From 1900 onwards there were so many vessels out there killing so many whales and just so many Kiwis think it was our Kiwi whalers that killed them off. It simply wasn't. It wasn't the case at all."
Ms Brosnan will show a premiere screening of her film, Whale Chasers, in Picton on Friday night.
3 News.
source: newshub archive