Press Release 23RD February 2010

More Protection Needed For Dolphins

Care for the Wild International (CWI) gave a cautious welcome to the long-awaited ruling released today by New Zealand’s High Court on fishing restrictions designed to protect endangered Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins.

Hector’s dolphins are classified as Endangered, and their North Island cousins Maui’s dolphins as Critically Endangered, by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), The main threat to these dolphins, and the cause of their devastating decline in recent times, is entanglement in fishing gear, specifically inshore gill and trawl nets. UK-based charity CWI has been campaigning for several years for improved protection for the beleaguered dolphins.

“The fact that the judge has upheld most of the fishing restrictions put in place by the former Minister of Fisheries Jim Anderton in 2008, is great news for the dolphins”, according to Mark Jones, one of the charity’s directors. “We must now persuade the current fisheries minister Phil Heatley to uphold the restrictions that the judge has referred back to him”.

CWI will also continue to lobby for the extension of fishing restrictions to all parts of the dolphins’ range. “This is particularly important given the death of a Hector’s dolphin in fishing gear last year in an area off Kaikoura that had a fishing exemption, and the sightings of Maui’s dolphins off Taranaki well south of the current protected area before Christmas”, said Mr Jones.

More information can be found on Care for the Wild International’s website www.careforthewild.com.

ENDS

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