Ambergris found in Mangatoetoe, New Zealand

Reports surfaced this week of a significant haul of ambergris, which was found last August on the remote Mangatoetoe coastline -- on the south coast of New Zealand's north island.

The incident began when a bull sperm whale measuring 18-meters -- or 60-feet -- in length washed ashore. Its carcass was mutilated by those who found it first. Its jaw was removed -- the teeth are very valuable, and also culturally important -- and the jaw-less body was set on fire, and left burning on the rocky shoreline. In New Zealand, under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, when a whale strands and dies on the coastline, its remains are offered first to the tangata whenua -- or the Maori. The Maori culture includes a sacred and worshipful relationship with whales.

Members of the Ngati Hinewaka -- the local iwi, or tribe -- were contacted, arrived on the beach and prepared to bury the carcass.

"We had to cut it in half to bury it," spokesman Haami Te Whaiti told the Wairarapa Age-Times newspaper, "and, after separation, we noticed a dark brown, almost black lump just lying there in the gravel. It just appeared there. I'd never seen anything like it before."

The lump was more than eighty pounds of fresh, black ambergris. Potential buyers flew to meet with the iwi, arriving from France and the United States to assess the ambergris. It was sold eventually to a French company for an undisclosed sum.

Read the full story here: http://www.times-age.co.nz/have-your-say/news/whale-rewards-wairarapa-maori/3951004/