a real whale tail, maybe.Ter­rible head­line pun lif­ted dir­ectly from the Hutt News, which this week reveals more about the man behind the fake whale tail that is cur­rently flip­ping and flap­ping amon­sts the waves in Wel­ling­ton Har­bour.

Turns out Phil­lip Wad­ding­ton, a noted loc­al potrait artist, cre­ated the fake tail (made of bam­boo, inner tubes and black PVC) to protest Japan’s bid to increase their annu­al kill-for-food quota. He just did­n’t both­er telling people about it until now. Very subtle protest­ing. Phil­lip posi­tioned the tail in the har­bour last Monday night with a little help from friends, after which the ‘wind­surfer in dis­tress’ story came out in the Domin­ion Post a day or so later. As Philip says…

He obvi­ously did­n’t put the bin­ocu­lars on it.

Indeed. The cur­rent plan is to move the tail a bit closer to shore, so as to make it more vis­ible to people walk­ing along the shoreline. Dis­cus­sions with the har­bour­mas­ter have estab­lished that it’s not going to be a mari­time haz­ard, so it’ll prob­ably remain until wear-and-tear do their bit and it all falls apart.

What a great thing to have cre­ated. Phil­lip Wad­ding­ton, we salute you!