Minister refuses to take responsibility for investigation into dolphin death

Nearly two months after the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) announced an independent review into its failure to prosecute fish dumping, Minister Nathan Guy will still not take responsibility for the unreported death of an endangered dolphin being investigated.

WWF-New Zealand is reiterating its call for Mr Guy to ensure that the review of the Operation Achilles report includes why the Hector’s dolphin death, caught on video camera, was not reported or included in official mortality records, after the Minister’s claim that it is an “operational” matter for the MPI to decide whether or not this is investigated.

“MPI failed to ensure that a dolphin death in a fishing net, which they had video footage of, was reported. It is not good enough for the Minister to now say it’s up to MPI to decide whether their own failure is investigated,” said WWF-New Zealand Senior Campaigner, Alex Smith.

WWF-New Zealand wrote to Nathan Guy, Minister for Primary Industries (on 20 May 2016), to ask that the terms of reference (TOR) for the Operation Achilles review include the broader issues of the prevalence of non-reporting of dolphin deaths, and the potential widespread dumping of fish. The Minister replied on 30 June claiming that these issues are “operational in nature” and that MPI would follow up. To date, there has been no reply from MPI.

Alex Smith said the new TOR, decided by the MPI, for the Operations Achilles, Hippocamp and Overdue review narrowly focussed on the failure to prosecute for suspected breaches of fisheries law.

“It is alarming that the failure to report the Hector’s dolphin death, the broader issue of non-reporting of dolphin deaths, and the wider issue of fish dumping, have all been left out of the terms of reference in this investigation,” he said.

“The issue of non-reporting of dolphin deaths is extremely serious when Māui dolphins are on the edge of extinction, and Hector’s dolphins are endangered. We need to know if there is a wider problem,” Alex Smith said. “This could be just the tip of the iceberg.”

“If the Ministry knows about dolphin deaths that are caught on camera and is still not reporting these, then what happens when Hector’s and Māui dolphins die in fishing nets off camera?”

Hector’s and Māui dolphins are New Zealand’s national treasures – these beautiful, tiny marine mammals only live in New Zealand’s coastal waters – nowhere else in the world. Set netting and trawling are the biggest threats to their survival.

“We cannot ensure the survival of these dolphin populations if the true nature and extent of the threats they face are kept secret,” Alex Smith said.

Just this week, the International Whaling Commission report once again urged the New Zealand government to extend the ban on set netting and traditional trawling to cover all of Māui dolphins’ known range.

http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1607/Letter_to_Hon_Nathan_Guy_Independent_Review_into_Operation_Achilles_20_May_2016_1.pdf

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