Abstract
Hector’s dolphin is a small, endangered dolphin species found exclusively in the inshore coastal waters of New Zealand. We draw on 36 years of involvement in research on Hector’s dolphin, and its subspecies Māui dolphin, to provide an overview of the species’ conservation biology, and summarize the incremental progress towards sustainable management. We offer lessons learned at the interface between science and management. These lessons emphasize the importance of acting early, having clear management goals and ensuring that the area over which protection measures are applied is sufficiently large to be biologically relevant. High-quality information is vital, but gaining appropriate conservation outcomes depends also on social and political processes. We warn that compromise can have high biological costs and that representation on stakeholder groups is usually biased toward extractive users and short-term economic perspectives. In New Zealand, outcomes have depended closely on politics; the greatest gains have been made when relevant government ministers took a special interest. Scientists have crucial roles in every phase of this process. Each country and each species will present their own challenges and opportunities. We trust, however, that lessons learned from Hector’s dolphin conservation will be useful to researchers and managers elsewhere.
Highlights
Key environmental problems are escalating, in many cases toward extirpation of populations or extinction of species (e.g., Hoekstra et al, 2005; Ceballos et al, 2015)
The two government agencies involved in New Zealand, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and Department of Conservation (DOC) represent different interests and differ greatly in political influence
One might expect that making conservation gains in a country such as New Zealand is easier than it is
Summary
Key environmental problems are escalating, in many cases toward extirpation of populations or extinction of species (e.g., Hoekstra et al, 2005; Ceballos et al, 2015). Vessel-based and aerial line-transect surveys resulted in estimates of Hector’s dolphin numbers to 4 nautical miles offshore: 7,270 (CV 0.16: Dawson et al, 2004; Slooten et al, 2004) for the South Island and 111 (CV 0.44: Slooten et al, 2006a) for Maui dolphin off the North Island west coast. Kernel density analyses reveal that individuals show long-term residence in relatively small home ranges [average home range (k95) = 49.7 km of coastline, Rayment et al, 2009a] Genetic data confirm this pattern, with at least four genetically different regional populations (North Island, South Island east, west and south coast) and further evidence of genetic structure within those populations (Pichler et al, 1998; Pichler, 2002; Hamner et al, 2012).
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