A Hector’s dolphin had a lucky escape after she was rescued by crew on a sightseeing boat after becoming trapped in a cray pot line.
Crew on board an Akaroa Dolphins sightseeing boat came to the aid of the dolphin after spotting cray pots in Haylocks Bay on Friday.
All forms of fishing and development are banned in marine reserves, so the skipper decided to take a closer look, given cray pots are not permitted in the area. It was then they saw the dolphin entangled in the rope and buoys around midday.
Julia Waghorn of Akaroa Dolphins, a Banks Peninsula business which charters vessels to tour the Bay, said she and several others on the boat were able to free the mother dolphin, the calf of which was swimming around the boat.
“Crew Natalie Stuart, guest Lol Bergman and owner Julia Waghorn managed to untangle the rope, freeing it back into the ocean to its calf, which looked to be only a few months old.
“Skipper and owner George Waghorn immediately alerted The Department of Conservation who did a full investigation.
“The pot had originally been set in a different location from where it was found. Fishing is not allowed in the reserve and this is what alerted skipper George to take a closer look.”
Waghorn told 1News the boat was “a good couple of hundred metres away” from the cray pots before he decided to venture closer.
He reckons the pots had drifted about 2km from another area surrounding the reserve where it would have been legal to fish.
Waghorn says it was “an absolute fluke” the mother got entangled.
“We had the mother on the back of the boat and the calf was just swimming around the boat and when we released the mother, they both swam away together,” he said of the happy ending.
He says the rope attached to the pot was set at about 12 metres depth but had about 25 metres of rope in it.
“Normally you coil the excess rope up so it’s not drifting along the surface,” he says, adding it’s the “first time he has ever seen a dolphin caught in the area”.
Julia Waghorn told 1News the dolphin had been grazed by the cray pot rope which had caused bleeding.
Tom MacTavish, DOC Marine Ranger, says both MPI and DOC are investigating the incident.
“We took a call from the Akaroa Dolphins operator once the vessel was back in cell phone range after the incident had occurred. We’re satisfied that in this unusual and rare set of circumstances, removing the rope and buoys from the dolphin was the humane and sensible thing to do.
“The Hector’s dolphin is a wild sea animal and may well have a range inside and outside the Akaroa Harbour. It is unclear at this time where the dolphin became entangled. It may have been outside the Akaroa Marine Reserve – in an area where fishing/cray pots are permitted - and the dolphin then swam into the marine reserve where it was spotted. DOC and MPI are looking into this further,” he said in a statement.
DOC says the conservation status of Hector’s dolphins is nationally vulnerable. One of the world’s smallest dolphins, they are mostly found around the coast of the South Island.
All forms of fishing and development are banned in marine reserves. They offer the highest level of marine protection and aim to create protected spaces that are valuable for scientific study and for New Zealanders to visit to see protected marine life.
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