by Metiria Turei
Forest & Bird has released photos and data showing increased Hector’s and Maui’s dolphin mutilation:
Forest & Bird obtained data from DOC under the Official Information Act about the number of Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins found mutilated round New Zealand’s coastline. The records show there have been 36 cases of dolphins found mutilated since 1980, including five cases from the 1980s, 14 cases from the 1990s and 17 cases since 2000.
“Mutilated hector’s dolphin, found on Marfell’s beach, Blenheim. Photo courtesy of DOC”
Forest & Bird’s Marine Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles believes that the mutilations are attempts to hide evidence of fishing related deaths and make the cause of death more difficult to determine.
While some of the marine mammal sanctuaries and fishing restrictions announced by the previous Government have come into effect, others have been stalled by legal challenge.
The National Party’s dolphin policy is unclear – like most parties, they use nice rhetoric of “precious and iconic species”, halting population decline, and being guided by science. But they do not commit to population recovery.
The problem is that it is not enough to stablise the population or reduce a few threats. Current numbers are precarious, bare fractions of the original state: Hector’s at ~25% and Maui’s hanging on by their fintips with less than 10%.
You see, we have a “Threat Management Plan”, but no “Population Management Plan”. They sound the same, but they’re not. Under marine legislation, marine mammals with PMPs need to be moved to a non-threatened status, i.e. recover, not just arrest decline.
Compare the dolphins’ plight with our “precious and iconic” land species. Did we think it was enough to stabilise the Chatham Island Black Robin population at 5? Or Kakapo at 50? Of course not. We’ve poured millions of hours, dollars and research time into population recovery. Even weta have their own population recovery plan!
The difference with dolphins is that, while land species’ population recovery plans have little impact on industry or development (coal-mined snails aside!), dolphin recovery involves restriction of fishing practices. Hence saving dolphins runs up against big money and short-term economic interest. Longer-term thinking, protecting brand NZ, tourism development, and the intrinsic value of a marine mammal struggle to compete.
National has a clear choice. They act as genuine blue-greens and apply their conservative principles (including the precautionary one!) to dolphin recovery; or they pander to profit, ignore the science, and use any hint of scientific uncertainty to stall action. What will it be Minister?
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Metiria Turei on Thu, December 4th, 2008
Tags: conservation, dolphins
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
My understanding is that it is very short term economic interest that is impacted. Setting up a no-fishing area often leads to improved fishing outside the area as the fish stocks in the no-fishing zone recover and the fish move outside the no-fishing zone. So there is often gain rather than loss to the fishing industry even over relatively short timescales.
Trevor.
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Yes that would be right. Unfortunately when industry lobby groups talk about economics they are only interested in the short term, mostly the “economy” of the directors. Ultimately environmentalists care the most about the economy because when the planet is totally trashed there will be very little economic activity at all.
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Fishermen shoot seals and dolphin. In the same vane there used to be a giant Matai tree near L. Ianthe but when the govt declared a moratorium on native logging it was vandalised and had to be felled (for safety).
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jh – are you equating vandals with fishermen and laying the blame at their feet? Or are you blaming the Government for declaring moratoriums to protect endangered ‘beings’?
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I’m saying interest clouds reason.
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jh – yours is a very good point. Best to have disinterested parties making the decisions on issues they have no interest in – difficult but possible. However, you’d need to be sure those decision makers had all of the relevant facts and a track record of good decision making. Any suggestions for who might decide over the ‘close to shore set-netting issue’?
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