he next sound east of Queen Charlotte is Pelorus - the former haunt of Pelorus Jack. Pelorus Jack was a Risso's dolphin who, between 1888 and 1912, accompanied any steamer travelling outside Admiralty Bay and Pelorus Sound. In 1904 a law was passed to protect him after someone tried to shoot him from a passing steamer. He was last seen in April 1912 and various rumours surrounded his disappearance, including that he had been harpooned by foreign whalers. However, recent research has shown that Pelorus Jack was an old animal. His head was white and his body pale, both indications of age, so it can be assumed he died of natural causes. The Risso’s dolphin is a rare species in New Zealand waters, only 12 have ever been reported, and it is possible he swam alongside ships for company in the absence of his own kind.

Other more common dolphin species are often found in these waters. Bottle-nosed, common and dusky dolphins are all regulars, and this is in the range of the beautiful Hector's (or New Zealand) dolphin.

The Marlborough Sounds have also hosted whalers - the station at Te Awaiti in Tory Channel was built in the mid-1820s to harvest right whales and humpbacks migrating through Cook Strait. In 1911 the Perano family who ran the station introduced fast motor launches equipped with explosive-headed harpoons, which greatly increased their catch. The addition of a mothership-chaser meant more than 200 humpbacks a year could be taken and enabled sperm and occasionally blue whales to be hunted further offshore. These local operations, and the relentless operations of foreign whalers, nearly exterminated New Zealand's whale stocks. In the early 1950s more than 500 blue whale were counted on their annual migration through Cook Strait, but by 1963 only 23 were seen. Only now are they making a slow recovery.