MEDIA RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE USE

WWF Says Seize Last Minute Lifeline For NZ's Endangered Dolphins

29/08/2007 WWF is urging the government to offer real protection for endangered Hector's and Maui 's dolphins, by adopting the most effective options in proposals announced today.

The Hector's and Maui's Dolphin Threat Management Plan is now open for public consultation, and is due to be finalised by Christmas. It offers options ranging from doing virtually nothing, Option 1, to Option 3, which would represent a significant increase in protection and conservation.

WWF believes Option 3 must be taken if these important species are to stand a chance of regaining their former abundance and range. This would include banning:

• set nets in harbours on the west coast of the North Island , from Kaipara to Cape Egmont , out to 12 nautical miles (nm)
•
• drift nets in Port Waikato
•
• set nets in Hector's dolphin areas in the South Island out to 6nm on the west coast and 12 nm on the east coast
•
• trawling from Maunganui Bluff to Cape Egmont out to 4nm and in Hector's dolphin areas around the south island out to 2nm.
•
Chris Howe, WWF-New Zealand executive director, said: "This new initiative has come not a moment too soon for these amazing animals. The priority now is to ensure the plan is finalised with strong measures for the dolphin's protection, and for those measures to be implemented quickly.

"It's three years since the WWF-led coalition challenged the government to take action. Hundreds of dolphins have died in fishing nets since then. At the least the plan needs to remove the threat from fishing from the dolphin's natural range."

WWF provided technical advice to the government during the creation of the current plan. A WWF e-petition calling for the implementation of a truly effective action recovery plan for these species currently has 20,500 signatures.

Such a plan would need to go further than any of the proposals annouced today, and include the identification, management and mitigation of all other potential threats, and a total ban on set nets within New Zealand territorial waters, out to 12nm, and on trawling in near shore waters shallower than 100 metres.

The two species of dolphin are among the rarest in the world, and are only found around New Zealand's shores. The biggest threat to them is from commercial and recreational fishing.

The dolphins are unable to detect set nets - fixed nets that are held on or off shore with anchors. If they become entangled, they drown within minutes. They are also accidentally caught by trawlers.

Add to this the disturbances to their habitat from tourism, polluted waters, coastal development and boat traffic, and survival for one of the world's rarest marine dolphins is a daily battle.

Scientists estimate more than 26,000 Hector's dolphins ranged throughout the coastal waters of New Zealand 's South Island in the 1970s. Today there is a struggling population of a little over 7,000, isolated in just a few small groups which are becoming fewer and further apart.

Maui's dolphins, the North Island cousin of Hector's dolphin, fare even worse. They are now critically endangered, with a population of just 110. If these new protection measures fail, WWF fears Maui 's may become extinct within the next 25 years.

ENDS

© Scoop Media