#waitoreke

These photos from 1971 are said to show the waitoreke, a cryptid from New Zealand. While some do believe that the images show a stoat or ferret. Stoats and ferrets are not necessarily native to New Zealand, but were introduced in the late 1800s to try and control an overpopulation of rabbits.

Cryptid of the Day: Waitoreke

The Waitoreke is a New Zealand cryptid. It resembles a beaver or otter and is reported to be the size of a cat. It has been sighted periodically for over 200 years. 

Possible explanations for the waitoreke are an otter, beaver, seal, or quoll. Apart from reported sightings, little to no evidence exists supporting its existence. 

The waitoreke is an otter-like creature from the folklore of New Zealand. Described as being the size of a cat, with brown fur and short legs, it is most often seen in or near the water of New Zealand's South Island.

Several people have presented evidence of the waitoreke's existence. German geologist Julius von Haast found a spotted pelt in 1868, which was thought to belong to the waitoreke. Even the legendary explorer Captain James Cook claimed to have encountered the creature in 1772.

Image source.

Monster master list.

Cryptid of the Day: Waitoreke

Cryptid of the Day: Waitoreke

    “In the middle of the nineteenth century, several settlers in New Zealand’s remote Canterbury Province reported the existence of an otherwise unknown otterlike creature called the waitoreke. Ferdinand von Hochstetter, writing about New Zealand in 1863, said that the waitoreke was one of those ‘few sporadic mammalia which have thus far escaped the searching eye.’ If the waitoreke really exists, it has still escaped the searching eye.

    “When Bernard Heuvelmans reviewed the evidence, he suggested that the waitoreke might be some wort of unknown otter, or even a type of large platypus. Naturalist S. J. Watson was more pessimistic, concluding that there was ‘very little ground’ for believing in the animal at all. But even he said that ‘it would be unwise to ignore the possibility [of the existence of the waitoreke] however remote it may be.’

    “Monster enthusiast Peter Costello unearthed a privately published 1964 pamphlet that contains many recent sightings of an unknown otterlike animal, mainly from an area of South Island in New Zealand, in the mountain country around Lake Ellesmere. Costello rejects the otter theory and points out that placental mammals like the otter are recent arrivals in New Zealand and Australia. There is one exception--the seal; several varieties of seal are found along the New Zealand coast. Costello believes that the identification of waitoreke with an otter was established on very little evidence and has never been properly examined. He concludes it is far more likely that the waitoreke is some sort of seal, perhaps of an unknown variety.”