Local conservationists had been trying to return the two pygmy sperm whales safely to the water, but the whales had repeatedly beached themsleves.  Reports suggest that the bottlenose dolphin then appeared and guided the whales away from the beach and to safety.
 
The dolphin is well known to local residents near Mahia beach on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island.
 
Dolphins are famed for their intelligence and benevolence.  Reports of swimmers lost at sea, or threatened by sharks, but then rescued by dolphins are not uncommon.  Some solitary dolphins, separated from their own kind,  over time come to learn to associate with with people and vessels.  Sadly this often puts them at much greater risk of both deliberate and accidental harm. 
 
There are many reasons why whales and dolphins strand. Sometimes this is a natural event because they are ill or elderly and on other occasions they may be driven ashore by our activities out to sea. In this case the whales may have been disorientated in the shallow waters and unable to find their back to deeper waters.
 
WDCS's Director of Science, Mark Simmonds said “Dolphins are remarkable and highly intelligent animals and it is quite possible that this dolphin did understand the whales’ predicament and acted to help them. Bottlenose dolphins are typically very capable in shallow waters whereas many other dolphins and whales with offshore habitat are not”.