Big support for small dolphins

From left, Dolphin Defenders Kristi Henare, Zelka Grammer and Beverley Gott want Northland people to get behind the campaign to save the the Maui's dolphin. Photo/Michael Cunningham

A Northland group has launched a campaign to increase awareness and help save the world's most endangered dolphin species.

Not only is Maui's dolphin the rarest in the world, with only 55 known survivors, it lives in a limited area roughly between Kawhia Harbour to the south and the Kaipara Harbour to the north on the west coast.

The small dolphins' cause has now got bigger with the launch of the Whangarei branch of Dolphin Defenders, part of a national campaign to put pressure on the Government to do more to protect the animals.

Maungakaramea farmer and environmentalist Zelka Grammer said it was "intolerable and an embarrassment" that under the watch of the current Government, Maui's and Hector's dolphins numbers had come dangerously close to the brink of no return. New research confirms that New Zealand's Maui's dolphins could face extinction by 2031.

"Can you imagine how that would sit internationally, what that would do for our clean green image and reputation?"

Commercial fishing and boat-strike were the greatest immediate threat yet there was insufficient pressure on the industry to restrict netting, Ms Grammer said.

"There needs to be more constraints. Imagine if land based farming practices here in New Zealand led to the extinction of one of the world's rarest creatures, would we allow that in this day and age?"

Kristi Henare, chair of the Northern Royal Forest and Bird Society and co-ordinator of junior environmentalist group Kiwi Conservation Club (dubbed 'kids wild about nature'), said that if change did not happen soon, the Maui's dolphin could be extinct by the time the club's members became parents.

"We have 55 of them left, and they're dying," Ms Henare said.

Maui's and Hector's dolphins both have distinctive rounded dorsal fins and similar colouring to their giant cousin, orca.

There are believed to be few females among the remaining animals. They produce one calf every two to four years, breed from the age of five and only live for about 20 years.

Dolphin Defenders are calling for the public to urge the Ministry of Primary Industries to ban gill netting and trawl fishing throughout the Maui's and Hector's dolphins' habitat, and prohibit seismic testing, oil exploration and mining activities that might disturb or threaten that habitat.

To help fundraise for the publicity campaign and petition to Parliament, Whangarei Dolphins Defenders will sell T-shirts, soft toys and other marketing items through several local stores.