Grass-roots environmental charity Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders today staged an energetic protest with locals, outside Nelson Port to highlight the plight of Māui and Hector’s dolphins which sees them drowned and killed by trawl and set nets, every year.

In today’s Nelson Port protest, Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders installed 17 memorial crosses with dolphins on them, honouring every dolphin reported killed by the fishing industry in the last fishing year, beginning in October 2023, when Prime Minister Christopher took office.

The ‘dead’ dolphins were overseen by a grim reaper who held a life-size dead Hector’s dolphin aloft, tangled in a net. Banners included ‘Protect Hector’s from the fishing industry’. The protest team involved local Nelson based supporters from groups concerned about these avoidable and unacceptable dolphin deaths.

The 17 dolphins reported killed in the latest fishing year is a 600% increase in reported trawling deaths, arising from the roll out of cameras on board some fishing vessels. But not all fishing vessels have cameras and not all camera footage is reviewed, so this is likely to be an underestimate.

Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders founder and Chair, Christine Rose says, “No dolphin should be drowned and killed in a fishing industry net. These deaths are unacceptable and avoidable. Trawlers and set nets can and must be excluded from the dolphin habitat; that’s out 20 nautical miles and 100m deep, if the dolphins are to survive. The lack of leadership by the fishing industry and the Government, to deliver on this, is failing local fishing communities and Māui and Hector’s dolphins.

“Economically important local fishers, like those here in Nelson, are being let down by industry representatives and Fisheries NZ. It is this lack of guidance and reckless lack of regulation that is killing dolphins and putting the local fishers’ social license at risk as well as jeopardising critical seafood exports.”

In December 2024, Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders launched a ‘David and Goliath’ court case against the United States’ Government in the US Court of International Trade. The case seeks a ban on the importation of fish from trawl and set net fisheries in Māui dolphin habitat, because New Zealand’s fisheries rules fail to comply with US bycatch rules and its Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Mrs Rose concludes: “As a charity we know that New Zealanders are desperate to keep these now-rarest-of- dolphins alive. We have been left with no choice but to launch a ‘David and Goliath’ type court case against the US government in the name of Māui and Hector’s dolphins.

With successive governments and the Department of Conservation failing Māui and Hector’s Dolphins for decades, we need to now tackle the US government to ensure they do the right thing for these dolphins before New Zealand, and the world, loses them forever.”

Māui and Hector’s dolphins are only found here. They are the world’s smallest dolphins and among the world’s rarest. The charity is calling on the National-led coalition Government to protect these dolphins throughout their range to stop the current extinction trajectory.

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