Dolphin advocates are welcoming the extension of set net closures to protect South island Hector’s dolphins, but they say they don’t go far enough.

The Minister for Oceans and Fisheries David Parker today announced measures to address bycatch of endangered Hector’s dolphins. But campaigners say the Minister has adopted a proposal that hands too much power to the commercial fishing industry, instead of keeping Hector’s dolphins safe throughout their range.

‘Set nets are a lethal threat to endangered Hector’s dolphins,’ says Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders Chair, Christine Rose, ‘so we welcome the extended ban on this practice in parts of the Otago and South Coast’.

But she says ‘a ban should also have been extended to protect Hector’s from commercial trawling in their habitat.’ ‘Instead, this proposal relies on unproven voluntary measures, and a ‘bycatch target’ and ‘bycatch reduction plans’ which specify up to 45 dolphins are allowed to be killed as bycatch in any year.’

The decision announced today increases the number of dolphins that can be killed in Banks Peninsula and Timaru, and offers no protection to the small, currently unprotected, Tasman Bay population which may be a lifeline to dolphins in the upper South Island as well as the North Island.

Rose says, ‘while we are glad to see a decision made almost a year after consultation ended, this decision is incrementalism which fails to meet International Whaling Commission and International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) targets to protect the dolphins throughout their range.’ ‘It allows an unacceptable level of bycatch from commercial trawlers, who are also among the last to get cameras on board, so monitoring and therefore enforcement is weak.’

‘This is no way to keep dolphins safe, in populations where every life matters. We’ve seen unprecedented bycatch deaths and entanglements in the last year, and no doubt additional unreported deaths too.’

‘The set net proposals are important but fail to cover the whole dolphin range and vulnerable sub-populations, and industrial fishing effects are inadequately addressed’.

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