On November 2 2015 we launched our 'By-catch of the Day' campaign, near Onehunga Port in Auckland, where considerable catch from Maui habitat is landed.
In colourful style, with banners ans cut out dolphins, and christening our new costumes, we launched a petition calling for no gill net fishing in our dolphin habitat and sought to raise awareness of the link between fish and chips an dolphin by-catch. Anything caught in a net within about 20nm puts dolphins at risk. Please follow the links on our home page for the petition, and sign and share.
Our campaign launch got lots of media attention and lots of discussion.
But in January, at the same time we were out on West Coast beaches talking to lots of people about the dolphins, and lots of people were reporting sightings of Maui / Hector's close to shore, we also received reports and photos of purse seiners, apparently fishing about 150m from shore.
We raised this issue with the media, as MPI had told people they should get GPS and photos instead of investigating themselves. The ship's company owner, "Sir Peter Talley" said reports of purse seining close to shore were 'rubbish', but the ship went back to port soon after. Round one to the dolphins - though the ship has been seen off shore again since.
