Full Solution
Creating a Citizen Science App to Identify NZ Hector’s dolphin habitat
Summary
This project aims to prevent continued decline of the endangered Hector’s dolphins. Dolphins are getting caught as bycatch in trawl and set nets. People want to help dolphins but don't know how. Citizen scientists are being trained, to extend the number and location of sightings around New Zealand, as well as identify when strandings occur. At the same time, these citizen scientists become protectors of the dolphins, intimately involved in their survival.
Classifications
Region
Océanie
Scale of implementation
National
Ecosystem
La mer ouverte
Écosystèmes marins et côtiers
Theme
Acteurs locaux
Gestion et Planification des Aires protégées et conservées
Science et recherche
Challenges
Perte de biodiversité
Manque de capacités techniques
Manque de sensibilisation du public et des décideurs
Mauvaise surveillance et application de la loi
Aichi targets
Challenges
Establishing a knowledge base, empowering local people, getting protected habitat
New Zealanders have shown they support Hector's dolphin protection in theory yet much more can be done. At present dolphins are getting caught as bycatch in trawl and set nets with numbers declining from 30,000 a few decades ago to 7200 today while the Maui subspecies has <100. Hector's dolphin researchers can't cover the entire coast of New Zealand. People want to help dolphins but don't know how.
Beneficiaries
Endemic endangered Hector’s dolphins; local people of New Zealand; MPA managers; researchers.
Building blocks
Comment les blocs constitutifs interagissent-ils entre eux dans la solution?
The first building block showed that New Zealand people were largely in favour of a conservation solution. Both greater involvement and data were needed. The app is building that involvement, and we hope that it will spread more widely around New Zealand. The pressure on politicians for a conservation solution has not begun and won’t be complete until the 2017 elections. This may not immediately result in more protected area, free from nets, but it will help to provide data to evaluate the evolving situation, and it will build a constituency who know and care about these dolphins and are interested in their future.
Impacts
With the newly developed sighting app for Hector’s dolphin, citizen scientists can now contribute to the effort to report sightings and identify the habitat of this endangered endemic species. More people are becoming involved in the push to protect their habitat.
Story
In 2014, Whale and Dolphin Conservation found through an independent survey of 1,000 New Zealand residents that they placed a high value on their endemic, endangered Hector’s dolphins and would be willing to forego cheap fish and chips to help save them. Most New Zealanders were willing to support habitat protection and removal of the set nets and trawls that kill the dolphins in bycatch. While overall Hector’s dolphins number 7,200, among the four populations one called Maui’s dolphin is reduced to fewer than 100 individuals. The decision was made to develop an app as a means of involving New Zealanders as well as gathering crucial data to support much wider protection in coastal waters. In the limited areas with marine protected areas where nets are banned, dolphin survival rate has improved. But more protection is need in the waters up to 100m deep around much of New Zealand.
Pictures
Contribué par
Erich Hoyt
Other contributors
IUCN SSC/WCPA Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force
Other Organizations
Portails
Cette solution a été publiée dans les communautés PANORAMA Blue et PANORAMA Aires de conservation.
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