Number of Hector's dolphins seen this summer - and especially the number of calves born this year - were way down!
Fewer than 1% of the dolphins we saw this summer were newborn calves. We have never seen such a low percentage in 30 years. The average is 4% over 30 years. The previous lowest percentage was 2%. Graphs and other info in this blog...
Alarming decrease in calves increases fears for endangered Hector’s dolphin
Prof Elisabeth Slooten, Prof Steve Dawson This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Pen...This is one of the reasons for George Monbiot, of The Guardian, saying that.
More than 80% of Indian Ocean dolphins may have been killed by commercial fishing, study finds
An estimated 4m small cetaceans caught as by-catch in commercial tuna fishing nets since 1950, researchers sayExcellent article by George Monbiot, always the voice of reason, on why you should ask how your fish was caught!
Or stop buying it altogether, until the industry stops killing our dolphins.
We should stop buying fish until the industry stops slaughtering dolphins | George Monbiot
Britain and the EU are complicit in hundreds of deaths a year in their refusal to impose effective rules on commercial fishing, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot