Zoology Professor Wants Better Protection for HectorÂ’s Dolphin Population

(I-TravelNewswire.Com, April 13, 2013 ) Orlando, FL -- The New Zealand's endangered Hector's dolphin tally may have recovered if protection measures were extended to 100 meters throughout its habitat, according to the newest University review from the University of Otago.

Liz Slooten, an Associate Professor of zoology, studied the general effectiveness of area-based management to reduce the overall number of dolphins that are caught during fishing activity. She noted that she felt it could be successful if certain key criteria are met.

Those criteria include the protected area being utilized by a large enough area within specific locations deemed important to the mammal. By removing key threats and effectively managing the prevention of new threats, such as marine mining, tidal energy etc... there could be considerable reason to hope for success.

The new review has been published within the Endangered Species Research international journal.

Associate Professor Slooten stated that a long-term study of the Banks Peninsula marine mammal sanctuary had shown the protected areas, where nets and trawling is banned, is a possibility that can work across the board.

"At Banks Peninsula, survival rates have increased by 5.4 per cent since the sanctuary's creation in 1988, and the previously rapid population decline has slowed substantially.

"However, nationwide, Hector's dolphins continue to slide towards extinction, mainly due to continuing bycatch in areas with few or no dolphin protection measures," she says.

Some examples include the lacking protection measures off the South Island's north coasts, where Hector's dolphins sometimes end up, despite often being within range in six nautical miles off the west of the South Island. Several scientific organizations have recommended that protection be extended to the 100 meters deep in habitats that are known to house the Hector's dolphins.

"Most Hector's do not range beyond waters of this depth. Extending protection out to this mark would largely eliminate the currently unsustainable level of bycatch."

Associate Professor Slooten said if that measure was adopted dolphin populations could recover to around 15,000 within 40 years.

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