Media release

Coastal city joins fight to save Maui’s dolphin

April 17, 2007

North Shore City Council today called on the Government to create a marine mammal sanctuary to save the Maui’s dolphin – the world’s rarest and smallest marine dolphin – from extinction.

At their strategic management committee meeting today, city councillors heard Auckland Regional Council’s deputy chair Christine Rose outline the plight of the dying breed dubbed ‘the kiwis of the sea’.. They endorsed her campaign to save the hundred still alive.

Committee chairman Gary Holmes says it is fitting that North Shore City, which boasts the longest urban coastline in New Zealand, echoes the call for the sanctuary and a species recovery plan as a matter of urgency.

“Our mayor George Wood will write to the Ministers of Conservation and Fisheries seeking their immediate action to help save the Maui’s dolphin from extinction,” Councillor Holmes says.

The Maui’s dolphin is found only on the west coast of the North Island, generally between Dargaville and Port Waikato. Like all marine mammals, this dolphin is vulnerable to set-nets and several of their dwindling numbers have been found dead this year.

North Shore City Council is also calling for set-nets to be banned.

Gary Holmes says he wants his own three children to grow up knowing the little kiwi of the sea is part of their present and not the past.

“As Christine told us this morning, ‘extinction is forever, we must act now’,” he says.

For information about the Maui’s dolphin, people are invited to visit the website, www.wwf.org.nz/dolphin or email christine.rose@arc.govt.nz.

You’re invited to hear Dr Barbara Breen of the World Wildlife Fund talk about the endangered Maui’s and Hector dolphins on May 4 as part of the MERC Winter Lecture Series. The venue is the Sir Peter Blake Marine Education and Recreation Centre [MERC] lecture hall, 1045 Beach Rd, Long Bay. Admission is only $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and students or $2 for Friends of MERC. Please visit www.merc.org.nz for more details.

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