‘Shocking and stupid’: Man fined for trying to ‘body slam’ orca

A 50-year-old New Zealand man who was filmed trying to “body slam” an orca was fined and excoriated by officials, who called him “stupid” and “irresponsible” for the dangerous stunt.

The man was not identified by New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, but officials announced he was fined NZ$600, which converts to C$500.

The video shows a man leaping off the edge of a boat towards an adult male orca and a calf swimming near the vessel “in what appears to be a deliberate effort to touch or ‘body slam’ the orca,” the Department of Conservation writes. On board the boat, the man’s companions cheer him on.

At one point in the video, the man yells, “I touched it!”

“Oh my God, it’s behind him!” one of the people on the boat shrieks while laughing.

The man briefly swims back towards the boat and holds onto the side before swimming back out towards the orcas for a second time.

Orcas are a protected species in New Zealand, as they are in Canada under the Species at Risk Act.

The Department of Conservation shared the video on Facebook and chewed the man out for his “shocking and stupid attitude to protected marine mammals” and his “reckless disregard for his own safety” and the safety of the orcas.

The footage was filmed in February off the coast of Auckland and uploaded to Instagram, officials write, noting they were tipped off to the video by a member of the public.

Hayden Loper, the conservation agency’s principal investigator, said the video left him and his colleagues “genuinely stunned.”

“This is stupid behaviour and demonstrates a shocking disregard for the welfare of the orca. It is extremely irresponsible,” Loper said. “Orca are immensely powerful animals, and this really could have ended horribly — with either the startled whale