ONLY 55 Maui’s Dolphin remain in the entire world.
I have to admit that this figure means so much more to me than any human statistic.
Generally, humans look out for humans and therefore, when someone is suffering, many people speak out to try an initiate a change for the better.
Of course this is not always true, and many humans are still left with a government who does not put the peoples best interests first.
But!
We are New Zealand.
We do not stand for ulterior economic motives and financial gains being put above human rights.
Why do we not apply this same passion to that of our precious animals?
These dolphins are not a species found globally and therefore it is not an international responsibility to ensure their survival.
These innocent creatures rely on us, Aotearoa, to save them from certain extinction and why we are refusing to step up to the mark, I have no idea.
It is easy to sit back and say ‘It’s the governments fault, they aren’t doing enough’ but really, we aren’t doing enough as the public either.
If enough New Zealanders really got behind this issue and pushed and urged and pledged for change, then maybe we really could put all blame on our government.
For now, there are only a select few of passionate individuals who are bursting at the seems to see our dolphins survival and they are doing an incredible job of pushing their cause but it is not yet enough.
It really is a sad country we live in when the survival of an entire species is left to hang in the balance between politicians who can do nothing but argue about it until the party in power is swayed to make a change.
Both sides of the story are understandable. We need income as a country and economic growth.
But we also need to be responsible for the environment we live in and if we have been the cause of an animals near extinction, we need to ensure we fix it.
New Zealand has for so long strived to be a leader in the scientific and environmental communities and now we are seen as the worlds biggest fools and hypocrites when our government can work to ban whaling but not save our own dolphins.
In my view, this is even worse than in countries where they actively poach such beautiful creatures because there is as much shame in killing something as there is in seeing something die and choosing to ignore it.
There were 1000 of these dolphins on the west coast in 1970… in just 40 years they have declined to 55.
Small country, strong spirit?
What is the point in having spirit, if you have no heart.
Hobbits of the Sea 