This Is How It Ends: Extinct within our lifetime, so why is it so hard to save some species?

Monday, 18 October 2021

Māui dolphin, New Zealand sea lion and a host of New Zealand native species are on course to go extinct – so why do politicians drag their feet? Andrea Vance and Iain McGregor investigate for Stuff’s This Is How It Ends series.

It’s the summer of 1984. David Lange’s anti-nuclear Government has just refused entry to the warship the USS Buchanan. Elton John’s Nikita is dominating the charts. And New Zealand’s endemic dolphins are mysteriously dying in droves.

Two young marine biologists, Steve Dawson and Liz Slooten, PhD students at Canterbury University, were just beginning research on Hector's dolphins.

“The idea was that I would study their behaviour and Steve would study their sounds,” Slooten says. “After a few months, we started noticing that, hmm … what's with all these dead dolphins washing up on the beach?

“So we diverted our research in the direction of conservation problems.”

In May, Slooten and Dawson retired from the University of Otago, although they’ll continue their research from the Bay of Islands.

And almost 40 years since they started their work, Hector’s and their close relative Māui dolphin are on the brink of extinction.

The latest Department of Conservation survey estimates there are only 54 Māui left, confined to a stretch of water between Maunganui Bluff and the Whanganui River mouth, and 10,000-15,000 Hector’s dolphins left in South Island waters.

It didn’t take Slooten and Dawson long to solve the mystery of what was happening to the dolphins. Hector's and Māui have been in serious decline for almost half a century – their biggest human threats are fishing nets, and in particular set and trawl nets.

“We started … talking to fishermen. [We were] hearing from many of them: ‘Oh yes, I catch a dozen or so of these each year, or I catch 20 or so each year’.

In one of Dawson’s interviews he learned one fisherman caught 44 in one summer at Banks Peninsula.

The world’s smallest dolphins were swimming into fishing nets often invisible in murky waters or at night, and becoming entangled.

With lungs roughly the same size as humans, if they can’t surface to breathe within minutes, they suffocate.

Desperate to avoid drowning, they thrash and struggle, breaking teeth or fins. The nets cut deep into their flesh.

Several times, better protection was put in place to protect the tiny creatures. A marine protected area was designated in 1988 at Banks Peninsula, with commercial gill-netting prohibited to 7.4km offshore, and restrictions on recreational fishing.

A second sanctuary was established on the west coast of the North Island in 2003.

A decade later, gill-netting was banned in coastal waters around the South Island's east, west and south coasts, and the North Island's west coast. Restrictions were placed on trawling and five marine mammal sanctuaries to manage non-fishing-related threats.

Further restrictions were introduced into Taranaki waters in 2012 and 2013 to protect Māui dolphins. Finally, last year after months of delays, the Government introduced new rules as part of a threat management plan.

It included new areas closed to set-netting and trawling and extensions of existing closed areas.

The plan received a mixed reaction. The fishing industry wasn’t thrilled, and conservationists argued there were still large gaps in protection.

Greenpeace NZ repeatedly criticised both the Government for “half measures” in protection, and the fishing industry for driving Māui dolphins “to the brink of extinction’’.

And in September, conservationists were left furious at a Fisheries NZ decision to increase the snapper quota by 23 per cent in Māui territory, arguing it increased the risk of bycatch.

“New Zealand is top in the world for having the highest number of threatened native species,” says Greenpeace campaigner Ellie Hooper.

“It is mind-blowing that we still have delay on action to save the Māui and Hector’s dolphin.

“In the ocean space, we've seen successive governments prioritise commercial interests over environmental ones. They always call it a balance. But nature really has a hard limit.

“And that hard limit is being repeatedly crossed.”

Green MP Eugenie Sage was working as a press secretary for then-Conservation Minister Helen Clark when Slooten and Dawson published their PhD research.

“She acted on the science and the Banks Peninsula sanctuary was established,” Sage says.

“But that was highly controversial. And ever since, it’s been highly controversial. Because fishing folk say their recreational interests or livelihoods are threatened by an expansion of set net areas or trawl-free zones.”

David Parker, now Oceans and Fisheries Minister, also served in Clark’s government.

“There was a critical article written in the Listener at the time. So, I phoned up Helen and said: ‘I don't want to be part of a government that oversees the extinction of a species’. She said the same.

“The wheels of government really did start to move, and that's led to a lot of steps taken in subsequent years to protect the Māui dolphin.”

Sage was appointed Conservation Minister in 2017, and was tasked with introducing a new ‘threat management plan’, alongside Labour colleague, Stuart Nash, the Fisheries Minister.

“[It] was, along with tahr [pest control] and [legislation to protect] freshwater fish, highly contested. You thought the sky was going to fall in.

“It’s really disappointing that it is so hard. I know the Māui and Hector’s team within Te Papa Atawhai [Department of Conservation] worked really hard, but it was a real battle, in terms of fishing interests. It was fraught.”

Sage says there is a significant area around Banks Peninsula that is still not off-limits to trawling. “That was because a couple of fishers based out of Lyttelton said they’d be out of business. The emphasis is on the economic value of fishing.”

It is a frustrating debate for Paul Bingham, chair and part-owner of Black Cat Cruises, a Banks Peninsula eco-tourism operator.

“The biggest threat for the dolphins is set nets and gill nets. We've had some dreadful examples just in the last two years, 11 dolphins were caught and killed just off Lyttelton harbour. There was one here inside [Akaroa] harbour three years ago.

“New Zealanders jump up and down when whales are slaughtered and killed. But 50 dolphins will die off the east coast of the South Island here this year. It seems like an incredible situation.”

Bingham says the most recent consultation to extend the sanctuary was a “long process”. He wants further restrictions, closing what he calls a “death zone” right out to 100 metres in depth off the peninsula.

“The fishing industry is well resourced,” he says. “They're up for their livelihoods.”

But the tourism industry has its own commercial argument. “The conservation argument is easy. No-one wants to be out there, even the fishermen, catching and killing, drowning accidentally, dolphins. But we can offset the commercial argument with a tourism angle.”

Bingham says his business employs 50 people in the area. A pre-Covid study revealed Hector's dolphin tourism was worth around $25 million to the economy and an additional 500 jobs.

“We only have one Kiwi dolphin. These dolphins are as Kiwi as the kiwi. There are 75-80,000 Kiwis in New Zealand, there's only 10,000 of these little Hector's left.

“If we don't change our habits, they won't be here for our children. And they'll be just photos and postcards that people used to see back in the 80s through the 2020s.”

Kiritapu Allan, the current Conservation Minister, says she hasn’t given up on saving the species.

“If any species would go extinct on my watch, our watch, during the course of my lifetime, it causes all of us consternation,” she says.

“Just I recently commissioned some more work on it. What else can we do? … I haven't received any advice … that there is a simple fix … If it was simple, it really would have been done.

“We're not done. You'd never say that you're done on a particular species.”

For Otago University zoologist and sea lion specialist Bruce Robertson this is a familiar story.

New Zealand sea lions/whakahao were hunted almost to extinction between the 13th and 19th centuries. After sealing was banned in 1893, the population began to recover.

But they remain the most threatened sea lions species in the world, with only around 10,000 remaining, primarily in New Zealand’s subantarctic Auckland and Campbell Islands.

“The population has been in decline, probably from around 1998. There was about a 40 per cent decline in pup production,” he says.

“And that's just at the Auckland Islands where the vast majority of sea lions breed.”

Researchers ruled out disease as the major cause of decline. They concluded vessels were accidentally capturing females foraging for food for their pups.

Indirect resource competition for fish and squid was also a factor in the decline.

“We know [they’ve been] caught in the commercial fisheries around the Auckland Islands.

“In particular, the arrow squid fishery was catching a reasonable number of sea lions, predominantly females, each year.”

Robertson, who has advised DOC on threatened species management, including providing conservation genetics advice to the kākāpō recovery team for more than 20 years, says the-then National government “wasn't particularly happy with that conclusion”.

Since 2006, Sea Lion Exclusion Devices have been standard equipment in squid trawls around the Auckland Islands and Robertson says the Government, under pressure from the fishing lobby, put too much faith in the mitigation.

The SLEDs allow sea lions to escape from nets, but there is concern they go on to drown or die from injuries after passing through.

“The government, very early on, was quite adamant that if you design it to save a sea lion, it will work that way,” Robertson says.

“The problem is the government and the fishing industry have never done the experiments that are required, that other researchers overseas have done for things like turtle exclusion devices.

“Bycatch is only reported when it's hauled up on the back of a boat. If you've put a hole in the net, how do you know that a dead sea lion is not just falling out?’’

Although officials are advised by a technical advisory group, Robertson says the government relied heavily on an industry-produced report.

“The-then Minister for Fisheries basically decided sea lions are no longer being killed in the trawl nets at any number that would have an impact on the population, therefore fishing is no longer having an impact.

“But there's really good evidence to suggest that sleds might not be working as well as we think they are.”

Allan disagrees. “The reports I've read to date have shown it, they've done a relatively good job. Not perfect, but a pretty good job.”

Robertson says the decision-making process for protection of threatened species is flawed.

“There's working groups, with various environmental non-governmental organisations, government employees, the fishing industry, and then there's people like me that go along, although fewer of us now.

“You have to talk in a cone of silence. You may not agree with what's being discussed. But often the outcome is: ‘the group decided this.’ Even though you didn't agree to it.

“Then, the government can just change the decisions. Or if industry doesn’t like it, they will take the government to court. They have the dollars to take a judicial review. In the 2000s that was quite prevalent [and] ministers got very gun shy. They're super cautious now.”

Robertson says some scientists are also afraid to speak out. “Many get money from the government to do research … and if they were to speak out, they wouldn't get funding.

“I've experienced that, where you basically get blackballed, [because] the industry don't want you involved.

“It means many scientists on these panels can't speak their mind. It is stifling scientific discussion.”

Robertson wants the law rewritten to protect our most vulnerable marine creatures.

Sea lion and other marine mammal bycatch is currently managed by the fisheries minister.

“What that means is that it's not the minister for conservation who is looking after sea lions, or Maui's dolphin and so on.

“The minister of fisheries is trying to conserve sea lions, but he also has this responsibility under the act to conserve the fishing industry, or the species that they're targeting.

“The minister has to balance both of these things. So what you might do which would be good for sea lions, if it's detrimental to fishermen, you can't do 100 per cent. Maybe you have to only do 50 per cent, because you have to keep the fishing side of things in balance.”

Parker says the marine mammals legislation “is not top of our agenda”.

“We are looking at reviewing marine protected area legislation during this term of Parliament. We are not promising to finish that legislative journey, but we are kicking off that policy work.”

The Global Ocean Alliance and the High Ambition Coalition consists of 54 countries aiming to protect at least 30 per cent of the global ocean in marine protected areas, but New Zealand is not a member.

Attempts to create a huge marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands/Rangitāhua, and extend protection around Campbell Island/Motu Ihupuku have been stymied by threats of legal action by the fishing industry and debate over Māori rights.

“We haven't taken decisions as to whether we would legislate for that title or not,’’ Parker says. “We have ambitions to lift New Zealand's marine protected area so that we get closer to that 30 per cent. We're not backing away from that as a target.”

Sage says legislative change is necessary.

“We don't have a threatened-species act in New Zealand, the Wildlife Act is more than 65 years old and in urgent need of review.”

The law was recently put under the microscope by the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court over shark cage-diving. “Our law doesn’t work,” Sage says. “It’s unclear now as a result of the case whether the Department of Conservation has the legal ability to control disturbance.

“We need an urgent overhaul. It doesn't protect threatened species, but it also reflects a very colonial perspective. It favours introduced species like trout and game birds, but doesn’t provide adequately for freshwater fish, invertebrates or our marine species.”

The soon-to-be-repealed Resource Management Act also has loopholes, she says.

“Any application for subdivision and development, applicants don't generally do a comprehensive site survey.

“So, it means the existence of threatened species aren’t known until the end, if at all.”

Sage recommends a culture change at the heart of decision-making. “We have an ethos in Aotearoa that where you get a conflict between economic use and threatened species … little priority is given to threatened species and protection of their habitats.

“I was surprised at industry lobbyists and the capture of government agencies. It just makes it so hard politically, that you end up with compromise.”