Submission regarding the Hector Dolphin
To whom it may concern,
My apologies for missing the first submission round, I was away but did make contact andrew Baxter and relayed to him our concerns regarding the plight of our precious little hectors. I see that in your draft plan our concerns were ignored, the points we made to him were that we believed the Hectors in the QC Sound were the most endangered population in NZ that with the current rate of decline will be gone in 10 yrs.
The biggest threat to these little guys are the threat of entanglement in nets especially the 1000 metre rig nets that are set right across the middle of the Hectors stamping ground. along with the habitat destruction caused by the commercial scallop fleet bottom trawling through their feeding grounds.
None of this has been acknowledged in your draft plan, you mention The Cloudy Bay population and talk of banning set nets in that area . The Hectors in Queen Charlotte dont even rate a mention and bottom dredging through their feeding grounds seems to be of no concern to you either.
Subsequent talks with Andrew Baxter revealed two very disturbing issues;
For one he believes that the Queen Charlotte Hectors are part of the Cloudy Bay population , so as long as you protect those guys , you are also guaranteeing the survival of the QC Hectors. He said that he is baseing his theory on the fact that Les and Zoe Battersby told him that the numbers of Hectors have been as high as 40 in number, he has interperated that to mean that the numbers fluctuate as they interact with each other.
I dont believe that this is the case, I have been traversing the Sounds for over 50 yrs , the last 10 yrs as an Eco- Tour operator, I too remember when the Hectors numbered 40/50, about 20 yrs ago , but their numbers have been dropping steadily ever since.
We see these little guys every day over the summer and if there were visiting animals we would notice the change in behaviour, also there numbers do not fluctuate. I have asked Liz Slootens advice on this , I will copy in her response.
Both genetics and movement of photographically identified dolphins show that the rate of movement between populations is very low. For example, we have never seen any movements of individuals between Banks Peninsula and Timaru despite many months of fieldwork from Timaru and many years from Banks Peninsula. Statistically that means that there is a less than 1% probability per year of an individual moving over distances like Banks Peninsula to Timaru and East Bay to Cloudy Bay.
Therefore, the probability of a dolphin death in East Bay being replaced by a dolphin from Cloudy Bay is very low and that small population in East Bay has to make it on its own. It’s not likely to be “rescued” by individuals from Cloudy Bay, especially given that population is not particularly large and itself subject to human impacts (there have been quite a few entanglements in Cloudy/Clifford Bay).
When I said to Andrew I was disappointed that you guys hadnt acknowledged bottom dredging through Hector habitat as a threat to their survival , he said “Hectors dont die through entanglement in Scallop dredges !”
Well i’m not a marine bioligist, but we have an affinity with the wildlife in the Sounds and we know them intimately , we are studying and photographing them daily, and have done for years.What I do know is that you dont need a degree to know that if you dont eat you have to forage further and further afield and if you dont you pretty soon get sick from starvation and you die ! In the case of the dolphins they will leave and not return.
We see the interaction that takes place between the different species, dolphins, fluttering shearwaters, Gannets the seals that sometimes swim with the duskies.etc……You people must take an eco system wide approach to this issue and you cannot do that by ignoring and making excuses for commercial fishing practises that are endorsed by MOF’s.
We are witnessing a rapid collapse of our Sounds eco system , and the most tradgic thing to watch is the dimise of our precious little Hectors. Every year especially when the commercial scallop fleet comes into the Sounds, up to 30 vessels, they use GPS grid referencing systems and they run their bulldozer blades over every sq inch of the bottom. We notice the change immediately in the behavioural patern of the dolphins, the Bottle nose leave the Sounds, and the Hectors move to another area. they seem to have about a 25 mile range, from the Grove Arm down to Motuara Island.
Andrew is right they dont get caught in the dredges !
But they are bottom feeders are they not, a large percentage of their diet comes from what they forage off the bottom, crabs, flatfish etc… where the dredging is so damaging is that they smash up all the biodiversity on the bottom they wreck the foodchain, and the first thing to leave the area are the fish !
The amount of revenue that the scallop fleet make from dredging the QCSound is miniscual about $180,000 compared with the revenue that is able to be generated by the presence of a healthy population of Hectors and other Dolphins. the Eco and associated tourisim operators in the Sounds would earn in the vacinity of 20 millon dollars.
The thing on the very top of every tourists wish list is to see dolphins , birds, bush and fish life.
The MOF’s own stats tell them that the fish stocks in the Sounds have declined by over 87% since the previous survey.
We dont like to talk about our eco system in terms of dollars and cents, but if that is the only language that cabinet ministers understand then they need to appreciate that for the Marlborough Sounds tourisim industry, the wildlife is our natural capital , we should be making every effort to restore our natural environment and the thing on the very top of our list in the Sounds should be the Hector Dolphins.
I went to visit an old guy the other day who was a friend of my old dads, he is 96 yrs young, he told me about the abundance of the little Hectors in the bay they were bought up , Resolution Bay. I wanted to ask him about what happened to the large numbers of blackfish ( Pilot Whales. ) that used to frequent the Sounds in days gone by.
He said that he was a commercial fisherman for 50 yrs, and his dad for 50 yrs before him. he said that back before the war large numbers of blackfish used to come regularly into the sounds and cruise all the bays in a similar fashion to the Orca, I quizzed him as to what he believed caused the blackfish to stop coming into the Sound knowing that hundreds of them still cruise through Cook Strait ?
He said that there used to be millions of bloaters in the Sounds, whole areas used to be black with them, it was the large schools of bloaters that the black Fish feed on.
Two things brought about the demise of the Bloaters and the Blackfish . The bloaters ( Sardines ) breed in the lagoons and wetland areas our tipuna drained most of the large wetlands and dredged the lagoons for marinas, then the fishermen who started fishing for the Bloaters in 14 ft dingies started to use 30ft motor launches, then 40 footers, then they pair trawled, they had a factory that tinned and exported them to europe. Then one day they were all gone !
Please learn these lessons from our recent past, Habitat destruction and over fishing will bring about the demise of the Hectors and the Bottlenose dolphins in the Sounds and the first ones to dissapear will be our little Hectors, Liz Slooten recons 10 yrs , I dont think it will take that long. !
The Duskies are the only species that will survive because of their method of feeding, they meatball the baitfish which are still in abundance, the dolphins like Bottlenose and Hectors who feed off individual fish ,once the fish stocks get too low they have to expend far too much energy to catch their fish, it gets too hard and they leave.
Imagine how many fish it takes to support a pod of 50 to 100 bottlenose for a sustained period, they still come into the Sounds sometimes in very big numbers but they often only stay for a few days and they leave and dont come back for weeks.
If you people are serious about saving the Hectors you must challange the MOF’s endorsement of Allowing bottom Dredging in the Sounds which is contary to their Act which says that they have a responsability to protect the habitat , and ban set netting, I wont say before its too late, you must act NOW.
The Hector Dolphins in the Queen Charlotte Sounds are the most endangered in New Zealand with less than 20 souls , surely they are worth more than a lousy $180,000 ! of scallops !
Noho Ora Mai,
Pete & Takutai Beech.
Guardians of The Sounds.