Fishing ban injunction will kill dolphins - WWF

www.stuff.co.nz 30 Sep 08;

A High Court ruling putting a hold on some government-enforced fishing bans will cost the lives of at least 30 Hector's dolphins within three months, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) claims.

Proposed bans have temporarily been lifted for fishers off some areas of the west coast of the North Island, the Marlborough Sounds, and at Te Waewae Bay in Southland.

Released last Friday, the court decision granting an interim injunction on the measures came after the commercial fishing industry took legal action.

The bans, put forward in May this year and due to be enforced this week, were an attempt to help protect Hector's and Maui's dolphins.

WWF said today the decision was a sad day for New Zealand.

"The new protection measures are essential to stopping the serious decline of Hector's and Maui's dolphins," said WWF-New Zealand's marine programme manager Rebecca Bird.

She said the past three decades of fishing with nets had been killing the dolphins faster than they could breed.

"As a consequence, there is now a struggling population threatened with extinction -- from over 30,000 Hector's dolphins in the 1970s to just 7270 today."

Ms Bird said WWF would now advise its international contacts that wild-caught New Zealand seafood product from in-shore net fisheries should not be viewed as sustainable.

The Federation of Commercial Fishermen and a number of fishing companies who challenged the restrictions said they would cost jobs in areas where the dolphins were never seen.

The federation argued it did not want to harm the dolphins but only wanted secured seasonal relief where jobs were under immediate threat.