Protection plan for world’s rarest dolphin challenged in court

Thursday, 10 April 2025

Commercial set nets (or gill nets) are deemed to be the main human activity that threatens Māui and Hector's dolphins’ survival as they roam shallow coastal areas and forage in harbours.

A fresh legal battle over Māui dolphin is heading to court, with the Government facing claims it protects commercial fishing interests ahead of one of the world’s rarest animals.

The Environmental Law Initiative is seeking a judicial review of decisions made around a 2020 plan to counter threats to Hector’s and Māui dolphin.

The advocacy group argues several parts of the Threat Management Plan (TMP) are unlawful, including decision on population outcomes, set net and trawl net fishing restrictions and an official limit on the acceptable number of Māui dolphin deaths.

Between 10,000-15,000 Hector’s dolphin remain, down from 29,000 in the last 45 years.

Actor Robyn Malcolm lends her voice to the growing call for more to be done to save Māui and Hector's dolphins. (Video first published in August 2019)

Māui, a sub-species found off the West Coast of the North Island, are in a more parlous state. Only about 54 individuals over the age of one year exist in a stretch of water between Maunganui Bluff and the Whanganui River mouth, although their natural range stretches much further.

Commercial fishing is one of the main threats to the dolphins, which are unique to New Zealand waters, because they swim into fishing nets and become entangled.

It is an agonising death because their lungs are small, roughly the same size as humans' and if they can't surface to breathe within minutes, they begin to suffocate.

A United States court put a temporary ban on New Zealand seafood exports from Māui dolphins’ habitat but this was overturned last year.

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

A TMP was announced by the government in 2008 and then revised in June 2020.

ELI claims it isn’t clear where and when population targets in the plan apply, fails to reflect environmental principles, and does not account for the dolphins’ historical range.

It also challenges the decision by then-Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash to implement set net and trawl bans, stating that limited closures - particularly in Māui dolphin habitats and along the East and South coasts - ignore the best available science, fail to apply precaution in the face of uncertainty, and do not adequately mitigate the impact of fishing.

The group also contends trawl rules for the West Coast of the North Island fail to protect critically-endangered Māui dolphins.

Over the years, successive governments have implemented plans to protect Māui, now recognised as the world’s rarest dolphin.

And that the death limit - known as Fishing-Related Mortality Limit (FRML) - unlawfully underestimates risk by excluding areas outside the dolphins’ habitat zone, and relies on unfulfilled monitoring requirements.

“Because there are so few Māui dolphin left, even one death is considered a catastrophic event to the population viability. They need intensive conservation effort to prevent their extinction,” Matt Hall, ELI’s director of research and legal, said.

He argues that vessel camera coverage of these fisheries is “still far less than 100%” and observer coverage in some trawl and set net fisheries has been reduced to zero.

“The result is, we just don’t know whether the mortality limit is being implemented properly or not,” he said.

Māui and Hector’s dolphin are small, with striking black and grey and white features, and a Mickey Mouse-type rounded fin.

“The Government hasn’t done all they can to prevent these dolphins from going extinct. With such low numbers left, we must get this right.”

A spokesperson for Fisheries Minister Shane Jones said he was aware of the proceedings “and is currently seeking legal advice to determine the response”.

Industry body Seafood NZ was approached for comment.

Christine Rose, of Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders, said Department of Conservation stats show at least 26 Hector’s dolphins were killed by trawl and set nets since the adoption of the last TMP.

“The TMP allows trawl and set nets, proven to kill, within the dolphins’ range, causing suffering, deaths, and decimation of dolphins”, Rose said, “The Government played the industry hand in a mortal game where the dolphins were the losers.”

“Decision makers put the anecdotal and speculative views of the fishing industry before their legal obligations to protect Māui and Hector’s dolphins. These decisions were also unacceptable, and immoral.”

In 2022 the US Court of International Trade implemented a temporary ban on the import of nine New Zealand fish species caught on the west coast of the North Island. It was overturned last April.

Late last year, Earthjustice and the Dolphin Defenders, took a fresh case to the court seeking US regulators enforce the US Marine Mammal Protection Act, which requires the government to ban seafood imports from any foreign fishery that “excessively harms marine mammals”.