Extinction of New Zealand’s Native Dolphin
Day 2,490, 03:15
•
Published in New Zealand 
•
by
•
by Corto.M
World Champion Freediver calls Imminent Extinction of New Zealand’s Native Dolphin “Shocking”
Will Trubridge holds 15 world records in freediving, an extreme sport that requires divers to breath-hold into the abyss. He’s the first human to reach a depth of 100 meters without fins, rope, weight or any other assistance, and he’s won the World Absolute Freediver prize twice. His life is busy with competitions in Europe and his own elite freediving school, Vertical Blue, in Long Island, the Bahamas. Yet he makes time to advocate internationally for New Zealand’s critically endangered Maui’s dolphin because he’s appalled at the circumstances that are causing its imminent yet totally avoidable extinction.
Trubridge grew up in New Zealand, where the powerful fishing industry’s gill net fishing and trawling threaten to kill off the nation’s only indigenous dolphin. With a population that has plummeted from 2,000 in 1970 to 55 today, New Zealand’s Maui’s dolphin is a poster child for what the fishing industry considers “bycatch.” The sea mammals get caught in the fishing nets and drown, and New Zealand’s lax fishing regulations have allowed nearly the entire population to be killed off. But even in the face of local and global citizen outrage, New Zealand refuses to extend protective measures.
Maui’s dolphins are a sub-species of Hector’s dolphins, the smallest and rarest dolphins in the world. “They’re intelligent, friendly and beautiful, and they only live in New Zealand,” Trubridge says. “Maui’s dolphins live in a relatively small territory on the West Coast of the North Island, and they’re almost gone. Under existing laws, the species will be extinct by 2030, and the New Zealand government is apathetic if not downright anti-ecological.”
New Zealand Dolphin Pod. Photo: Steve Dawson
SAVING NEW ZEALAND’S DOLPHINS
You’re passionate about helping the Hector and Maui’s dolphins.
They’re classified as “critically endangered,” and they face a real and present danger of being driven extinct. We can’t afford to lose a single one.
When did they start keeping track?
1970—and since then the Hector’s dolphin populations have dropped from 30,000 to just over 7,000. That’s more than 75 percent. It’s even worse for Maui’s; in 1970 there were 2,000, and today there are only 55.
And this is mostly because of fishing practices?
Yes. They’re “bycatch,” a euphemism for killed accidentally. They get caught in nets by fishermen who are after something else. Dolphins eat fish, too, so they’re likely to be in the same areas where a fisherman would set or drag a net.
Dolphins breathe oxygen just like we do, so when they get caught in those nets they have about three minutes of terror before they drown. They’re very intelligent, so during that time any other dolphins around would be screaming for help. Sometimes other members of the pod try to help them, and then sometimes they get caught and drown, too. There are shocking photos of multiple dead dolphins caught up in nets that have washed up on shore. There are other photos with dead dolphins lined up one after another.
Most people don’t know much about dolphins, and many people either don’t know or don’t remember that they breathe oxygen just like we do. Do you ever think about a dolphin trapped in a net and how it might experience drowning?
I do, definitely. In spite of how comfortable and at home I am under water, the idea of being trapped in a net or a cave or something like that is still a huge nightmare for me. People who have had near-death experiences, who have drowned and have survived to tell the tale, talk about a sort of euphoria just before they passed out. While that may be the case, that euphoria has got to be preceded by a type of panic that would just be awful, and I don’t think there would be any difference for a dolphin. A dolphin would definitely also experience those sorts of sensations and that sort of panic. It’s a terrible thought to imagine Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins—and other dolphins all over the world—being caught in gill nets and drowning.
And the government knows about this.
The New Zealand government has known that the species is in rapid decline for at least 30 years, yet still they allow both commercial and recreational gill nets and trawlers to be used within the dolphin’s territory.
Is the New Zealand government doing anything to protect them?
There’ve been small gains for their protection, but nothing really significant and nothing that solves the problem. The current biological projection is still extinction under existing laws. The current government is so apathetic about anything ecological. The types of comments they make about this issue or other environmental issues like fracking or drilling for oil in the ocean clearly show how little they care. They certainly are not motivated by the intrinsic good of protecting a species.
Shocking! What motivates the New Zealand government?
Finances. Money. If we can prove that it is actually more profitable financially to protect the Maui’s dolphin than to allow it be rendered extinct for the sake of cheaper fish n’ chips, then maybe the species has a chance.
100 PERCENT GREENWASHING
I recently visited New Zealand after many years. I felt betrayed that I had grown up there and hadn’t even heard of either the Maui’s or Hector’s dolphin. It’s almost like the government is repressing their existence because it doesn’t want to admit to the crisis or do the right thing to protect it.
A lot of what we’re doing is calling them out about that. I watched an interview with Prime Minister John Key by a very prominent British reporter who pretty much called him out the entire interview about the “100% Pure New Zealand” tourism advertising campaign.
You mean the “come to New Zealand where we’re progressively environmental and everything is protected and pristine” green-washing campaign?
Right. And the truth is, New Zealand rivers are contaminated, vast areas are deforested and topsoil is eroded, plus a lot of other environmentally devastating things are taking place. I think what saves New Zealand in terms of environmental impact is that there are so few New Zealanders. New Zealand’s current population is approximately 4.5 million, whereas in Japan—which is about the same size—the population is approximately 127.5 million. If there were as many New Zealanders as there are Japanese, New Zealand would have completely destroyed its entire ecosystem 10 or 20 years ago.
The New Zealand national election is coming up on September 20 (2014), and this is a critical moment for the Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins and New Zealand’s environmental protection overall. Prime Minister John Key of the National Party consistently chooses money over wildlife, and that focus on money has made him blind to the bigger picture of New Zealand’s future. The Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins can’t afford to have him in power again.Do you think the Green Party has an actual chance?
The Greens won’t ever be the party with the biggest percentage, but New Zealand has an mixed-member proportional representative government system, meaning all the parties are represented to the degree that they were voted for, and a Labour-Green alliance could potentially beat National.
You’re not a Kiwi by birth?
I’m not, but I grew up there from a young age and associate with New Zealand as my homeland. I had only a vague idea about New Zealand dolphins until I was planning Project Hector, an attempt at a world record of one hectometer (100 meters) that was also intended to raise awareness about the species’ plight and compel the government to protect them. As a kid I knew all about the different species of fish because we lived in a boat, and I used to do projects on dolphins and whales. I loved them! But I was completely unaware of the New Zealand Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins and their plight.
As the poster child for “bycatch,” the Maui’s dolphin is caught up in an ethical as much as an environmental crisis, then?
Very much so—and it’s a race against time. Unless the New Zealand government bans all use of gill nets and trawling, within the full territory of the species as defined by expert scientists, the Maui’s dolphin will be the first species of marine cetacean (dolphins and whales) to be rendered extinct due to human causes. This would set a tragic and shameful precedent, and New Zealand would go down in history for it.
How do you feel, as a New Zealander and a professional freediver?
I feel a great sense of urgency in the campaign to save the Maui’s Dolphin species. Their demise is not a complex problem, and there is scientific unanimity on the cause of the problem, which could be resolved by a simple change in policy—literally a swipe of the pen.
With enough international pressure, I believe the government’s hand can be forced, as there is too much at stake with New Zealand’s reputation built on its “clean” and “pure” branding. NABU international is doing an incredible job of applying and maintaining this pressure, with hundreds of international publications of its press releases, massive social media efforts, diplomatic negotiations and much more. Momentum is still building as New Zealand’s September elections approach, and I believe that with a little more funding NABU could push the issue past its tipping point and make a decisive difference for this iconic species.
New Zealand already ranks high in the extinction conversation. The Moa and Hast Eagle are one of the most infamous examples of “co-extinction” by human cause. Extinction of the Maui’s dolphin would only strengthen New Zealand’s existing reputation, and it isn’t reversible infamy. You would think they’d take this more seriously.
I hope they know the world is watching.
New Zealand Dolphin Mother and Calf. Photo: Steve Dawson
HOW TO HELP THE NEW ZEALAND DOLPHINS
So, what can we do?
The greatest power we have as global consumers is to vote with our voices and our choices. If you were considering visiting New Zealand on holiday, I would encourage you to speak up for the Maui’s dolphin to anyone associated with your travel plans. Let the airlines and hotels and restaurants you visit know you’re aware of the situation and feel strongly about it. I’d even encourage you to consider choosing some other country where the government is actively preserving the environment and wildlife rather than continuing to engage in activities that put them at serious risk. And if you decided not to visit New Zealand for these reasons, then make sure to tell the government and whatever relevant bodies that you’ve made this decision because of their poor practices. Let them know it cost them money, because that seems to be all they’re interested in.
People will come to New Zealand to see the smallest and most rare dolphin in the world!
Right. People will either come to see them or they will not come to New Zealand because we haven’t protected our dolphin.
It costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to get to New Zealand. If they destroy what they have, why would anyone bother to go there? Who would you ask people to write?
There are various options [see “Resources” below] for sending emails to the New Zealand government, and the more personalized those messages are, the better. That shows that there is diversity from overseas. It’s important to send the ministers strong messages to make sure that they know that you’re not visiting New Zealand or buying New Zealand goods because you want to see the dolphins fully protected.
Other Kiwi brands are doing very well over here in the United States, and I have approached some of these brands to see if they’ll make a statement or take a stand. And also, most of the fish coming over here weren’t caught in the Maui’s dolphin habitat.
The only way to affect change is to target the entire New Zealand seafood industry. I acknowledge that that’s unfair to the ethical fishermen who are doing the right thing ecologically, but those fishermen should already be putting pressure on the ones who are putting the dolphins in danger, and if they aren’t putting pressure, then maybe this could motivate them to do so.
Maui’s dolphins live in a limited geographical region, but you can’t say to someone, “Don’t buy New Zealand taki that’s been fished off the West Coast between such and such and so and so,” which are places they’ve probably never heard of. That’s impossible. So you have to just say, “Do not buy New Zealand seafood.”
Once the government sees some sort of effect of the boycott, hopefully that will motivate them to make the right decision. And yes, some people will be without a job for a while and perhaps some people will even go bankrupt, but that’s sort of petty circumstance when you compare it to the loss of a species, and it’s not the sort of thing we should be considering on the same level. It’s not a kind of thing where you can keep everyone happy or avoid collateral damage, but the priority has to be saving a species, and scientifically appropriate measures need to be put into place immediately.
India is the first country to take a moral stand and say no more captive dolphins.
They actually recognize them as “non-human people.”
Yes! A rapidly growing group of international citizens is passionate about this sort of ethical evolution. But then on the other side of the spectrum, people in Brazil and Peru are catching dolphins and using their bodies as bait for shark fins.
I think that’s mostly ignorance. I would be very surprised if any of them even know that a dolphin is a mammal, let alone an intelligent one. The majority of people just have no idea of the intelligence of the dolphins and how critical they are in the food chain.
You really think it is more ignorance than human greed?
It’s both, for sure. I agree that both are being played out in the international playground. But it isn’t just the seafood industry. Think about the human food chain—the people who are buying these products are definitively turning a blind eye. Business still comes down to supply and demand.
Regardless of the business argument, it is just never OK to kill dolphins, let alone wipe out an entire species—let alone your own indigenous dolphin.
I completely agree.
Is NABU International Foundation your choice of NGO for readers who want to send monetary support?
Yes, it is. NABU International Foundation is easily the organization that has committed the most to this. Barbara Mass, head of International Species Conservation with NABU, has been to all the International Whaling Commission meetings and single-handedly ensured that the text was decisive enough in recommendations to the New Zealand government at the last meeting in South Korea. Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Slooten a premier Maui’s dolphin scientist, has done all the research in the past decades, and Barbara has spearheaded the campaign to protect them in the last one.
Yes, Barbara Mass was instrumental in helping me understand the core issues and key players when I first learned about the Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins. Like us, she will never give up!
At the end of the day, all the organizations have the right idea and are mostly on the same wavelength, but if someone wanted to donate money to a specific organization to support the New Zealand dolphins, the greatest bang for their buck would come from NABU. All money donated to NABU’s Mau’s Dolphin Go Fund Me campaign goes to support the dolphins.
SUPPORT & LEARN ABOUT THE NEW ZEALAND DOLPHIN
To learn more about the Hector’s and Maui’s Dolphin, check out Dolphins Down Under: Understanding the New Zealand Dolphin (Otago University Press, 2013), co-authored by Dr. Elisabeth “Liz” Slooten and Dr. Steve Dawson, scientific partners who have intensely studied New Zealand’s only endemic dolphins for more than 30 years.
Support the Maui’s dolphin by donating to NABU International
http://www.nabu.de/
Hector’s and Maui’s Dolphin SOS Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/hectorsandmauissos/
Vertical Blue
http://verticalblue.net/
Resources for Helping to Save New Zealand’s Native Dolphin
CREDITS
Zoe Helene is a media correspondent and advocate for women, wildlife and wilderness. She spent ten influential years growing up in Aotearoa, the Maori word for New Zealand, which means The Land of the Long White Cloud. Zoe works with leading activists, scientists and environmental organizations across the globe to save species such as the critically endangered Maui’s Dolphin and endangered Hector’s dolphin from extinction. Hector’s and Maui’s are New Zealand’s only native dolphins. Zoe, like the native Maori, considers them taonga, a treasure to protect and cherish.
Photos of New Zealand Dolphins are by Steve Dawson
Photos of New Zealand Dolphins Surfing is by Pierre Gallego
Will Trubridge holds 15 world records in freediving, an extreme sport that requires divers to breath-hold into the abyss. He’s the first human to reach a depth of 100 meters without fins, rope, weight or any other assistance, and he’s won the World Absolute Freediver prize twice. His life is busy with competitions in Europe and his own elite freediving school, Vertical Blue, in Long Island, the Bahamas. Yet he makes time to advocate internationally for New Zealand’s critically endangered Maui’s dolphin because he’s appalled at the circumstances that are causing its imminent yet totally avoidable extinction.
Trubridge grew up in New Zealand, where the powerful fishing industry’s gill net fishing and trawling threaten to kill off the nation’s only indigenous dolphin. With a population that has plummeted from 2,000 in 1970 to 55 today, New Zealand’s Maui’s dolphin is a poster child for what the fishing industry considers “bycatch.” The sea mammals get caught in the fishing nets and drown, and New Zealand’s lax fishing regulations have allowed nearly the entire population to be killed off. But even in the face of local and global citizen outrage, New Zealand refuses to extend protective measures.
Maui’s dolphins are a sub-species of Hector’s dolphins, the smallest and rarest dolphins in the world. “They’re intelligent, friendly and beautiful, and they only live in New Zealand,” Trubridge says. “Maui’s dolphins live in a relatively small territory on the West Coast of the North Island, and they’re almost gone. Under existing laws, the species will be extinct by 2030, and the New Zealand government is apathetic if not downright anti-ecological.”
New Zealand Dolphin Pod. Photo: Steve Dawson
SAVING NEW ZEALAND’S DOLPHINS
You’re passionate about helping the Hector and Maui’s dolphins.
They’re classified as “critically endangered,” and they face a real and present danger of being driven extinct. We can’t afford to lose a single one.
When did they start keeping track?
1970—and since then the Hector’s dolphin populations have dropped from 30,000 to just over 7,000. That’s more than 75 percent. It’s even worse for Maui’s; in 1970 there were 2,000, and today there are only 55.
And this is mostly because of fishing practices?
Yes. They’re “bycatch,” a euphemism for killed accidentally. They get caught in nets by fishermen who are after something else. Dolphins eat fish, too, so they’re likely to be in the same areas where a fisherman would set or drag a net.
Dolphins breathe oxygen just like we do, so when they get caught in those nets they have about three minutes of terror before they drown. They’re very intelligent, so during that time any other dolphins around would be screaming for help. Sometimes other members of the pod try to help them, and then sometimes they get caught and drown, too. There are shocking photos of multiple dead dolphins caught up in nets that have washed up on shore. There are other photos with dead dolphins lined up one after another.
Most people don’t know much about dolphins, and many people either don’t know or don’t remember that they breathe oxygen just like we do. Do you ever think about a dolphin trapped in a net and how it might experience drowning?
I do, definitely. In spite of how comfortable and at home I am under water, the idea of being trapped in a net or a cave or something like that is still a huge nightmare for me. People who have had near-death experiences, who have drowned and have survived to tell the tale, talk about a sort of euphoria just before they passed out. While that may be the case, that euphoria has got to be preceded by a type of panic that would just be awful, and I don’t think there would be any difference for a dolphin. A dolphin would definitely also experience those sorts of sensations and that sort of panic. It’s a terrible thought to imagine Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins—and other dolphins all over the world—being caught in gill nets and drowning.
And the government knows about this.
The New Zealand government has known that the species is in rapid decline for at least 30 years, yet still they allow both commercial and recreational gill nets and trawlers to be used within the dolphin’s territory.
Is the New Zealand government doing anything to protect them?
There’ve been small gains for their protection, but nothing really significant and nothing that solves the problem. The current biological projection is still extinction under existing laws. The current government is so apathetic about anything ecological. The types of comments they make about this issue or other environmental issues like fracking or drilling for oil in the ocean clearly show how little they care. They certainly are not motivated by the intrinsic good of protecting a species.
Shocking! What motivates the New Zealand government?
Finances. Money. If we can prove that it is actually more profitable financially to protect the Maui’s dolphin than to allow it be rendered extinct for the sake of cheaper fish n’ chips, then maybe the species has a chance.
100 PERCENT GREENWASHING
I recently visited New Zealand after many years. I felt betrayed that I had grown up there and hadn’t even heard of either the Maui’s or Hector’s dolphin. It’s almost like the government is repressing their existence because it doesn’t want to admit to the crisis or do the right thing to protect it.
A lot of what we’re doing is calling them out about that. I watched an interview with Prime Minister John Key by a very prominent British reporter who pretty much called him out the entire interview about the “100% Pure New Zealand” tourism advertising campaign.
You mean the “come to New Zealand where we’re progressively environmental and everything is protected and pristine” green-washing campaign?
Right. And the truth is, New Zealand rivers are contaminated, vast areas are deforested and topsoil is eroded, plus a lot of other environmentally devastating things are taking place. I think what saves New Zealand in terms of environmental impact is that there are so few New Zealanders. New Zealand’s current population is approximately 4.5 million, whereas in Japan—which is about the same size—the population is approximately 127.5 million. If there were as many New Zealanders as there are Japanese, New Zealand would have completely destroyed its entire ecosystem 10 or 20 years ago.
The New Zealand national election is coming up on September 20 (2014), and this is a critical moment for the Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins and New Zealand’s environmental protection overall. Prime Minister John Key of the National Party consistently chooses money over wildlife, and that focus on money has made him blind to the bigger picture of New Zealand’s future. The Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins can’t afford to have him in power again.Do you think the Green Party has an actual chance?
The Greens won’t ever be the party with the biggest percentage, but New Zealand has an mixed-member proportional representative government system, meaning all the parties are represented to the degree that they were voted for, and a Labour-Green alliance could potentially beat National.
You’re not a Kiwi by birth?
I’m not, but I grew up there from a young age and associate with New Zealand as my homeland. I had only a vague idea about New Zealand dolphins until I was planning Project Hector, an attempt at a world record of one hectometer (100 meters) that was also intended to raise awareness about the species’ plight and compel the government to protect them. As a kid I knew all about the different species of fish because we lived in a boat, and I used to do projects on dolphins and whales. I loved them! But I was completely unaware of the New Zealand Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins and their plight.
As the poster child for “bycatch,” the Maui’s dolphin is caught up in an ethical as much as an environmental crisis, then?
Very much so—and it’s a race against time. Unless the New Zealand government bans all use of gill nets and trawling, within the full territory of the species as defined by expert scientists, the Maui’s dolphin will be the first species of marine cetacean (dolphins and whales) to be rendered extinct due to human causes. This would set a tragic and shameful precedent, and New Zealand would go down in history for it.
How do you feel, as a New Zealander and a professional freediver?
I feel a great sense of urgency in the campaign to save the Maui’s Dolphin species. Their demise is not a complex problem, and there is scientific unanimity on the cause of the problem, which could be resolved by a simple change in policy—literally a swipe of the pen.
With enough international pressure, I believe the government’s hand can be forced, as there is too much at stake with New Zealand’s reputation built on its “clean” and “pure” branding. NABU international is doing an incredible job of applying and maintaining this pressure, with hundreds of international publications of its press releases, massive social media efforts, diplomatic negotiations and much more. Momentum is still building as New Zealand’s September elections approach, and I believe that with a little more funding NABU could push the issue past its tipping point and make a decisive difference for this iconic species.
New Zealand already ranks high in the extinction conversation. The Moa and Hast Eagle are one of the most infamous examples of “co-extinction” by human cause. Extinction of the Maui’s dolphin would only strengthen New Zealand’s existing reputation, and it isn’t reversible infamy. You would think they’d take this more seriously.
I hope they know the world is watching.
New Zealand Dolphin Mother and Calf. Photo: Steve Dawson
HOW TO HELP THE NEW ZEALAND DOLPHINS
So, what can we do?
The greatest power we have as global consumers is to vote with our voices and our choices. If you were considering visiting New Zealand on holiday, I would encourage you to speak up for the Maui’s dolphin to anyone associated with your travel plans. Let the airlines and hotels and restaurants you visit know you’re aware of the situation and feel strongly about it. I’d even encourage you to consider choosing some other country where the government is actively preserving the environment and wildlife rather than continuing to engage in activities that put them at serious risk. And if you decided not to visit New Zealand for these reasons, then make sure to tell the government and whatever relevant bodies that you’ve made this decision because of their poor practices. Let them know it cost them money, because that seems to be all they’re interested in.
People will come to New Zealand to see the smallest and most rare dolphin in the world!
Right. People will either come to see them or they will not come to New Zealand because we haven’t protected our dolphin.
It costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to get to New Zealand. If they destroy what they have, why would anyone bother to go there? Who would you ask people to write?
There are various options [see “Resources” below] for sending emails to the New Zealand government, and the more personalized those messages are, the better. That shows that there is diversity from overseas. It’s important to send the ministers strong messages to make sure that they know that you’re not visiting New Zealand or buying New Zealand goods because you want to see the dolphins fully protected.
Other Kiwi brands are doing very well over here in the United States, and I have approached some of these brands to see if they’ll make a statement or take a stand. And also, most of the fish coming over here weren’t caught in the Maui’s dolphin habitat.
The only way to affect change is to target the entire New Zealand seafood industry. I acknowledge that that’s unfair to the ethical fishermen who are doing the right thing ecologically, but those fishermen should already be putting pressure on the ones who are putting the dolphins in danger, and if they aren’t putting pressure, then maybe this could motivate them to do so.
Maui’s dolphins live in a limited geographical region, but you can’t say to someone, “Don’t buy New Zealand taki that’s been fished off the West Coast between such and such and so and so,” which are places they’ve probably never heard of. That’s impossible. So you have to just say, “Do not buy New Zealand seafood.”
Once the government sees some sort of effect of the boycott, hopefully that will motivate them to make the right decision. And yes, some people will be without a job for a while and perhaps some people will even go bankrupt, but that’s sort of petty circumstance when you compare it to the loss of a species, and it’s not the sort of thing we should be considering on the same level. It’s not a kind of thing where you can keep everyone happy or avoid collateral damage, but the priority has to be saving a species, and scientifically appropriate measures need to be put into place immediately.
India is the first country to take a moral stand and say no more captive dolphins.
They actually recognize them as “non-human people.”
Yes! A rapidly growing group of international citizens is passionate about this sort of ethical evolution. But then on the other side of the spectrum, people in Brazil and Peru are catching dolphins and using their bodies as bait for shark fins.
I think that’s mostly ignorance. I would be very surprised if any of them even know that a dolphin is a mammal, let alone an intelligent one. The majority of people just have no idea of the intelligence of the dolphins and how critical they are in the food chain.
You really think it is more ignorance than human greed?
It’s both, for sure. I agree that both are being played out in the international playground. But it isn’t just the seafood industry. Think about the human food chain—the people who are buying these products are definitively turning a blind eye. Business still comes down to supply and demand.
Regardless of the business argument, it is just never OK to kill dolphins, let alone wipe out an entire species—let alone your own indigenous dolphin.
I completely agree.
Is NABU International Foundation your choice of NGO for readers who want to send monetary support?
Yes, it is. NABU International Foundation is easily the organization that has committed the most to this. Barbara Mass, head of International Species Conservation with NABU, has been to all the International Whaling Commission meetings and single-handedly ensured that the text was decisive enough in recommendations to the New Zealand government at the last meeting in South Korea. Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Slooten a premier Maui’s dolphin scientist, has done all the research in the past decades, and Barbara has spearheaded the campaign to protect them in the last one.
Yes, Barbara Mass was instrumental in helping me understand the core issues and key players when I first learned about the Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins. Like us, she will never give up!
At the end of the day, all the organizations have the right idea and are mostly on the same wavelength, but if someone wanted to donate money to a specific organization to support the New Zealand dolphins, the greatest bang for their buck would come from NABU. All money donated to NABU’s Mau’s Dolphin Go Fund Me campaign goes to support the dolphins.
SUPPORT & LEARN ABOUT THE NEW ZEALAND DOLPHIN
To learn more about the Hector’s and Maui’s Dolphin, check out Dolphins Down Under: Understanding the New Zealand Dolphin (Otago University Press, 2013), co-authored by Dr. Elisabeth “Liz” Slooten and Dr. Steve Dawson, scientific partners who have intensely studied New Zealand’s only endemic dolphins for more than 30 years.
Support the Maui’s dolphin by donating to NABU International
http://www.nabu.de/
Hector’s and Maui’s Dolphin SOS Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/hectorsandmauissos/
Vertical Blue
http://verticalblue.net/
Resources for Helping to Save New Zealand’s Native Dolphin
CREDITS
Zoe Helene is a media correspondent and advocate for women, wildlife and wilderness. She spent ten influential years growing up in Aotearoa, the Maori word for New Zealand, which means The Land of the Long White Cloud. Zoe works with leading activists, scientists and environmental organizations across the globe to save species such as the critically endangered Maui’s Dolphin and endangered Hector’s dolphin from extinction. Hector’s and Maui’s are New Zealand’s only native dolphins. Zoe, like the native Maori, considers them taonga, a treasure to protect and cherish.
Photos of New Zealand Dolphins are by Steve Dawson
Photos of New Zealand Dolphins Surfing is by Pierre Gallego
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Comments
votado!!!