Sombre Funeral March For Maui’s Dolphins Mourns ‘The Tolling of the Bell’

A sombre group will assemble on Parliament’s forecourt this Wednesday afternoon, as conservationists stage a Funeral March for Maui’s dolphins. The group will mourn inadequate protection for Maui’s dolphins with a lunchtime procession through Wellington, carrying replica dolphins and caskets.

Despite Minister Nick Smith’s announcement of additional protection for Maui’s dolphins early last week, the action is “tragically inadequate” say local and international environmental groups involved in the protest.

Maui’s dolphins are the world’s rarest marine dolphin with only about 55 adults left. They are also the world’s smallest dolphin, often dwelling in shallow inshore waters up to 100m deep. Maui’s can’t sustain a single human induced death for the next 10-23 years if the species is to survive.

The IUCN and IWC, scientists and conservationists from around the world all join the call for more comprehensive and proactive protection for the dolphins; a response local environmentalists say is so far lacking. “With numbers so critically low, the whole dolphin habitat should be protected” says Christine Rose, chair of Maui’s & Hector’s Dolphin Education/Action Inc, “including inside West Coast harbours, the ‘dolphin corridor’ down the coast, and out to 100m deep”. Mrs Rose says “the Minister of Conservation has done as little as possible to protect Maui’s dolphins, while the government continues to promote risky practices in the dolphins’ habitat such as seismic testing for sea bed mining and deep sea drilling”.

“By failing to protect the whole Maui’s habitat, this Government has pushed back Maui’s chance of recovery. It’s another tolling of the bell. We’re having a funeral march now because the Minister’s failure to take the comprehensive measures required, further consign this wee dolphin to extinction.”

Those attending the funeral march include international scientists and conservationists including Dr Barbara Maas from the German group NABU who are threatening a European boycott of New Zealand fish and a legal challenge to the Government’s latest “inadequate” moves.

The funeral march coincides with an International Marine Mammology Conference in Dunedin, which march organisers say is “ironic given the state of our stewardship of the world’s rarest, smallest and loveliest of dolphins”. “In making as few concessions as possible to address the crisis at hand, the Government have failed Maui’s dolphins”. “All the world should mourn the lost opportunity to save this species”.

ENDS

© Scoop Media