Humpback dolphins are endangered because they are rare, they reproduce slowly and only occur in a narrow band of very shallow coastal waters, close to shore – an area that is fast being modified and d
egraded.
These unfortunate, unintentional catches are called bycatch. In KwaZulu-Natal, there are 37 beaches that have shark nets. One beach, Richards Bay, has by far the greatest bycatch of humpback dolphins .Conservation biologists from the project Conserve Dolphins, working in partnership with the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board, analysed the spatial distribution of the bycatch and found that nearly half of these deaths occurred in just one of the nets – “net 99”.
At the beginning of April, the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board replaced this net with drumlines. Drumlines have been widely used in KZN since 2007 without compromising bather safety, and in Queensland, Australia, since 1962. They work on the same principle as the shark nets; killing sharks to reduce the chance of a shark attack, but on the positive side, they catch fewer non-target species.
One net on Alkantstrand’s main beach was also replaced with baited hooks and in total there are now four nets and nine baited hooks protecting bathers at Richards Bay.The deaths of 26 dolphins in nine years may not sound a lot, but given how rare these dolphins are, and how slowly they breed, that mortality rate is unlikely to be sustainable. Net 99 alone killed an average of 1.2 dolphins per year.
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