Dolphins face more tour traffic

By ANNE BESTON environment reporter

The Hauraki Gulf's dolphins and whales have had a low marine tourism profile up to now but that looks set to change as rival operators prepare to take on Auckland's sole dolphin-watching business.

Established operator Dolphin Explorer is furious the Department of Conservation is looking favourably at one application from a rival operator with two more in the pipeline.

"Every scientist I have talked to is unbelieving that DoC are going to do this," said Dolphin Explorer owner Mark Drascovich.

He has backing from leading marine researcher Dr Ingrid Visser of the Orca Research Trust.

"Vessel interactions are an issue for these animals and you have the chance to prevent the Hauraki Gulf from becoming another Bay of Islands disaster," she wrote in a letter to the department.

Dr Visser said the welfare of marine mammals was directly affected by the number of permitted tourist boats.

Marine mammal tourism in the Bay of Islands has been dogged by arguments over how many boats should be allowed at a time, how close to the animals they should get and how many operators should be permitted for each area.

Operators are battling the department over proposed new restrictions on their activities including distance from marine mammals when viewing or swimming.

Whale-watching at Kaikoura is restricted to one iwi-based operator after the department declined this year to issue further permits.

Mr Drascovich denies he is simply protecting his monopoly operation which he says is "financially a dog" but took almost two years to get approval and has been running for three years.

While one Bay of Islands business has a permit to operate in the Hauraki Gulf, Dolphin Explorer is the only Auckland-based dolphin-watching business.

Mr Drascovich said a major part of Dolphin Explorer's job was research. The company is spending $100,000 sponsoring two doctorates and two masters degrees on marine mammal behaviour in relation to tourism.

He said the department had done no research and did not have a management plan for the gulf.

The man behind the proposed new marine mammal tourism permit is New Zealander Kevin Lawler, involved in a whale-watching business off the Queensland coast.

He has applied to operate two boats to watch orca, whales and possibly swim with dolphins. Mr Lawler said from Queensland that he did not want to comment. DoC staff have recommended a permit be issued but the decision rests with regional manager Peter Lawless.