Putting it all together – Risk Analysis

Once data on population size, reproduction, survival rates and dolphin movement patterns have been gathered you can work out if the population is growing or declining. If the reproductive rate is higher than the natural mortality rate plus human-caused mortality, then the population will grow. If natural mortality is very high, or a large number of dolphins are killed in fishing nets and/or through other human impacts, then the population is likely to decline.

The NZ Whale and Dolphin Trust has supported a range of risk analysis work on Hector’s dolphins. This has shown that, while current protection is a major improvement over past management, we are still a long way off effective protection for Hector’s and Maui dolphin. For example, the population is only about a third of the original population size in 1970. While the rate of decline has dropped, protection is still far too low to allow dolphin populations to recover from the massive losses of the last few decades.

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