A US court has temporarily banned imports of New Zealand fish caught in the habitat of the Māui dolphin because the country’s Marine Mammal Protection Act is weaker than its U.S. equivalent. Under US law, an import ban can kick in if the court agrees a country is not applying similar protections to those in place in their waters. Recent estimates show just 48 to 64 individual Māui dolphins over the age of 1 year old remain, one of the biggest threats they face is fisheries bycatch. The ban could cost up to $2m a year in exports of fish from the Māui habitat, and may be the push New Zealand needs to step up and take immediate action to phase out trawling and set netting throughout the entire Māui dolphin habitat to protect these very vulnerable marine mammals.
The import ban will remain in place until the US makes a valid finding that New Zealand’s regulatory programme for the fisheries is comparable in effectiveness to the American regulatory programme or until the case is resolved. Every day the dolphins are exposed to inshore trawl fishery and inshore gillnet fishery, and with extinction being forever, once they are gone the species, only found on the west coast of the North Island in New Zealand, cannot be brought back.
