A dolphin led a pair of stranded whales to safety on Monday after all efforts by a human rescuer had failed.

The pygmy sperm whales, a 10ft female and her 7ft male calf, were seen to be in trouble off a New Zealand beach. They appeared to have become confused by a sandbar near the beach and could not find their way back to open water.

Conservation Officer Malcolm Smith was called to Mahia beach, on the east coast of the North Island, to try to help them.

“I pushed them back out to sea two or three times over an hour and a half, and they were very reluctant to move offshore,” he said yesterday.

“I was starting to get cold and they were becoming tired. I began to think I’d done as much as I could.”

Just then a bottlenose dolphin, named Moko by locals, appeared in the waters off the beach.

Mr Smith said he could hear the whales and the dolphin making noises to each other – and then the whales followed Moko out to sea.

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