Another one of the world's last 100 Maui's dolphins has died in a fishing net in New Zealand - a stark reminder that measures to protect the world's most endangered marine dolphin against fisheries bycatch are inadequate to prevent their extinction.

Maui's dolphins are the world's rarest and smallest marine dolphins, found only in NZ, protected under the Mammals Protection Act 1978 and classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. This means that they are facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the immediate future. Since nylon fishing nets came into use in the 1970s, entanglements in gill and trawl nets have decimated Maui's dolphins by more than 90 Percent, preferring shallow waters up to 100m deep these dolphins are highly vulnerable to fishing nets. The animals are now down to just 100 individuals which includes no more than 25 females, if mortality exceeds one individual in 5 to 7 years, the species will continue to slide towards extinction, just as it has done for more than three decades.

The latest fatality occurred off the coastal region off Taranaki on New Zealand's North Island. This sensitive area has been left unprotected by successive governments due to fishing industry lobbying, despite strong warnings from scientists. The New Zealand's Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's (MAF) response to the recent death was that MAF has fishing restrictions in place to manage threats to Maui's dolphins and the recent mortality occurred outside of the current known range of Maui's dolphins, as well as outside the current restrictions. Research however by Dr. Liz Slooten and colleagues from the University of Otago shows as far back as 2005, that Maui's dolphins frequent the area in question. In 2009, a local fisherman even captured a Maui's dolphin on his mobile phone camera, but the New Zealand government failed to accept this evidence.

Dr Slooten and colleagues in the area have been urging the government for many years to protect this stretch of coast, as it provides a genetic bridge between the last surviving Maui's dolphins and the more numerous but also declining Hector's dolphin population off the South Island. This latest death is therefore not only a further milestone on the path to extinction for NZ's only endemic dolphin, it's also entirely avoidable. Dr Slooten feels that the Maui's dolphins are simply overlooked. and despite overwhelming evidence these dolphins are being killed faster than they can breed. Females only have one calf every 2-4 years and do not reach breeding age until they are 7-9 years old. Their potential for recovery is therefore extremely slow.