Protecting Hector’s dolphin: How you can help
 Hector’s dolphin is a small, coastal dolphin found only in New Zealand. The species is endangered. The North Island population (also known as Maui’s dolphin) is critically endangered.
The Department of Conservation (DOC) and Ministry of Fisheries (MFish) have recently released for public consultation a draft Threat Management Plan for the species. The public has been invited to comment on the plan by 24 October 2007. This report summarises the proposals in the Plan and provides information on their effectiveness.
Please feel free to use the information in this report to write a brief letter and send it to:
Dolphin Threat Management Plan
P.O Box 11-146
Wellington 6011 New Zealand
Or email it to: Hectorstmp@biodiversity.govt.nz
The Draft Management Plan is the result of more than two years of discussion and planning on how to better protect Hector’s dolphin, including North and South Island populations. About two years ago, DOC and MFish set up an Advisory Group and an Expert Panel. Both groups included representatives from the fishing industry, recreational fishers, tourism industry, conservation groups and independent scientists. These groups agreed that the most serious threat to the species is dolphin deaths in gillnet and trawl fisheries.
The Draft Management Plan includes the following options for managing fishing impacts:
Management options for gillnets:
- Voluntary measures, monitoring and regulations for recreational fishers
- Protection for some areas and seasons
- Protection from bycatch for most of the current Hector’s dolphin range, out to 6, 12 or 18 nautical miles (nmi) depending on the area (6 nmi off the South Is west coast, 18 nmi off Banks Peninsula and 12 nmi everywhere else)
Management options for trawling:
- Voluntary measures and monitoring
- Voluntary measures, monitoring of the number of dolphin deaths and a trawling ban out to 2 nmi (ban does not apply to vessels targeting flatfish)
- Protection from bycatch for most of the current Hector’s dolphin range, out to 4 nmi off the North Island west coast and 2 nmi elsewhere
For other threats, the Management Plan proposes that DOC will work with other agencies and stakeholders over the next couple of years to find solutions.
Effectiveness of the management options:
It is important to remember that all Hector’s dolphin populations are seriously depleted. The Marine Mammal Protection Act requires that species that are currently listed as threatened (Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable) should become non-threatened as soon as possible and in any case in less than 20 years. Put simply, this means that the management goal must be recovery.
- If the above management options for fisheries impacts are applied to both gillnetting and trawling, throughout the current range of Hector’s and Maui’s dolphin, this would likely result in the following outcomes, for each of the options in turn:
- Further population decline
- Holding populations at their current, seriously depleted level
- Slow population recovery
Options 1 and 2 are ineffective and would not meet the statutory goal of recovery. If option 1 were chosen, for both gillnet and trawl fisheries, this would result in further population decline. Option 2 for both gillnet and trawl fisheries would at best result in the status quo, i.e. holding Hector’s dolphin populations at their current, depleted level. Option 2 includes such a complex range of different regulations in different areas and seasons that monitoring and enforcement would be very difficult. Protecting some areas but not others also makes it more likely that the problem will be shifted along the coast rather than solved, and it seriously increases the risk of population fragmentation. Option 2 is attractive from a political point of view, as it involves very little inconvenience to the fishing industry and recreational fishers. However, since bycatch in fishing gear is the most serious threat to the dolphins we can expect no substantial progress if fishing is left largely unaffected. The conservation benefits of Option 2 would be very minor, and the species would most likely continue to decline.
Option 3 is the only option that provides a reasonable chance of meeting the goal of recovery, and hence is the only option consistent with New Zealand and international guidelines for marine mammal conservation. For example the US Marine Mammal Protection Act requires that populations be kept above half of their original population size. Even with complete protection it would take until at least 2050 for Hector’s dolphins to recover to half of their original population size.
The range of protection options in the draft management plan is incomplete
Despite repeated assurances from government officials that the plan would include a full range of options from current management to complete protection for Hector’s dolphins, the draft plan has been put out for public consultation without a full range of options. This means that the public has been denied the opportunity to show its support for a complete protection option. None of the three options included in the draft plan would provide effective protection from all fisheries bycatch (see below), let alone protection from all human impacts.
The Minister of Conservation, Chris Carter, stated when releasing the draft management plan that the government “strongly supports a strategy to ensure these unique dolphins can be enjoyed by future generations. We need to increase their numbers as quickly as possible”. Unfortunately, the draft plan does not include any management options that would achieve this.
Even if all human impacts on Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins were eliminated, a recent published study has shown that it would take until at least 2050 for populations to recover back to half of their original population size. Complete recovery would take much longer than that. The best option in the draft plan (Option 3) would result in a worse than 50:50 chance of population recovery to half of the original population size by 2050.
Option 3 (the best option in the draft management plan) is a substantial compromise:
Option 3 is the minimum required to effectively protect Hector’s dolphin.
- Option 3 excludes several parts of the dolphins’ current range
- For example, the north coast of the South Island is not included in any of the protection measures and Hector’s dolphins are regularly seen there. Hector’s dolphins are also seen from time to time off the Wairarapa coast and other parts of the North Island not included in the protected area on the North Island west coast. None of these areas are included the protection measures.
- None of the dolphins’ historic range is included. This is important because if recovery is the goal, the dolphins need somewhere to recover to.
- Hector’s dolphins had a much wider distribution in the recent past. For example, sightings and strandings were common off the South Taranaki coastline in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, yet this area is not included in the protection measures.
- Offshore distance for protection from trawling is inadequate
- Gillnetting would be banned in waters less than about 100m deep. To make the regulations easier to monitor and police, this water depth has been translated into offshore distances. On the west coast of the South Island, gillnetting would be banned to 6 nautical miles (nmi) offshore. The offshore distance would be 18 nmi off Banks Peninsula (where shallow water extends further offshore) and 12 nmi in all other areas.
- By contrast, trawling would be banned only to 4 nmi in the North Island and 2 nmi in the South Island. This would leave a substantial portion of the dolphin population exposed to bycatch in trawl fisheries.
- No consideration has been given to other species
- Other dolphin species (e.g. common dolphins), seabirds and reef fish are regularly entangled in gillnets and their populations have also been impacted. A nationwide ban on setnets would be of benefit not only to dolphins and other marine life, but to the fishers themselves. In the long run, a change to selective, sustainable fishing methods will mean more fish in the sea for all of us.
Points to make in your submission:
All that’s needed is a short letter (half a page or so).
If you wish to see recovering Hector’s dolphin populations, clearly indicate your preference for:
- Option 3
- For both gillnet and trawl fisheries
- For all areas where Hector’s dolphins and Maui’s dolphins are found
You may also wish to point out that:
- The Draft Threat Management Plan does not include any options which would fully protect Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins from fishing mortality throughout their current range
- The trawling ban only goes out to 2 and 4 nautical miles (depending on the area) unlike the gillnet ban which goes out to 6, 12 and 18 nmi (depending on the area). This makes no sense from a biological point of view. If the dolphins’ range extends out to 6, 12 and 18 nmi so should the protection measures.
- No protection measures are proposed for areas where Hector’s dolphins were seen regularly in the past, but have not been seen in the last few years
- No consideration has been given to protection for other marine wildlife, including other dolphin species, seabirds and reef fish
A brief comment about why you care about this issue is really valuable:
- For example, if you have seen Hector’s dolphins, mention this in your letter and say something about how important it is to you that these animals are saved (e.g. this is a taonga species to you)
- If you enjoy diving, fishing, kayaking, beachwalking, surfing or other marine pursuits mention that and say something about your afinity for the marine environment
- These personal comments will help to bring your letter alive to the politicians so that they can see this is not just a form letter but an issue that is important to you personally
It’s best to vote for option 3 as well as indicating that you would prefer better protection for the dolphins. If you don’t indicate a preference for option 3 it’s possible that your submission will be ignored altogether because it doesn’t clearly vote for one of the three options in the draft management plan.
For more information, please see:
Care for the Wild: www.careforthewild.org
Department of Conservation: www.doc.govt.nz
Forest & Bird Protection Society: www.forest-bird.org.nz
Ministry of Fisheries: www.fish.govt.nz
New Zealand Whale & Dolphin Trust: www.whaledolphintrust.org.nz
Students for Environmental Action: .converge.org.nz/sea seaotago@gmail.com
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society: www.wdcs.org.uk
WWF: www.wwf.org.nz
Recently published scientific article about the effectiveness of 4 management options:
Slooten, E. 2007. Effectiveness of four options for managing Hector’s dolphin bycatch. Endangered Species Research, Volume 3, pages 169-179.
This article can be downloaded from:
www.int-res.com/journals/esr/esr-home/ |
