Dolphins Defense Group Says NZ Maui Dolphin Protection Still Inadequate

The group, Maui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders, said the National Marine Fisheries Service had used outdated information and failed to conduct key analyses when it decided not to impose an import ban on fish from New Zealand.

Under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, National Marine Fisheries Services must compare exporting nations’ regulations on their fishers’ bycatch to U.S. standards. Bycatch is the “incidental kill or serious injury of ocean mammals” that are unintentionally swept up in trawl and set nets during commercial fishing.

Maui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders said that Court of International Trade Judge Gary Katzmann previously prohibited imports from two New Zealand fishers in 2022 after the fishery service “failed to establish that Maui dolphin bycatch was not in excess of U.S. standards.” Since then, New Zealand has made no changes to address the issue, it said. But after Katzmann’s injunction was dissolved, NMFS’ comparability finding once again found that the two countries’ regulations were comparable.

First, the finding doesn’t consider the fact that New Zealand directly stated in its application for a comparability finding that it has no equivalent to the U.S.’ zero percent mortality goal, nor its “negligible impact” standard. U.S. regulations would allow one Maui dolphin death serious injury or death every 77 years, it said; New Zealand’s allows for one every 10 years.

The finding also relied on an outdated estimate of the number of surviving Maui dolphins, the group said. NMFS used a 2021 calculation to determine there are still 54 living dolphins, while the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee determined in 2023 that that number was down to 48. NMFS itself estimated in its 2024 comparability finding that there are only 43 left.

If NMFS had used any number below 54, the agency would have calculated that the animals’ potential biological removal level under New Zealand’s regulations was impermissibly high compared to the U.S.’, it said. Both lower numbers were available on the record, but the fishery service didn’t appear to consider either, it said.

And the group took aim at the comparison NMFS drew between the U.S’ and New England’s monitoring standards. NMFS found New Zealand’s 90% monitoring exceeded the United States’ 10% standard, but it only looked to the U.S. standard for “fisheries that catch much more abundant marine mammal stocks than the Maui dolphin.”

The U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, on the other hand, requires the agency to compare the regulations for “similar marine mammal stocks,” Maui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders said. When it comes to endangered species, the U.S. instead requires a 100% rate, it said.

It also said it didn’t know where that 90% number had even come from, as it wasn’t cited by either the fisheries agency or the New Zealand government. New Zealand, in fact, had actually put on the record that it monitored until 45% of trawl nets and 2% of set nets. Its government only actually reviews a small subset of the footage, it said.

And the group pushed back against the “almost-exclusive” process by which New Zealand conducts such monitoring -- the government uses electronic monitoring, while the U.S. uses more “statistically reliable” human observers. NMFS’ claim that this method was more accurate than direct opposition was incorrect, it said.

It also said NFMS needed to look beyond the dolphins and consider the byproduct resulting from other marine mammals being trapped.