Locals and visitors in the Bay of Islands are being urged to report sightings of a rare dolphin after a solitary Hector\u2019s or M\u0101ui dolphin was spotted in the Opua Channel.<\/p>\n
The Department of Conservation (DOC) says the dolphin was seen in English Bay by researcher Jochen Zaeschmar of the Far Out Ocean Research Collective, who has been authorised to collect a DNA sample to confirm its species.<\/p>\n
DOC marine species senior advisor Kristina Hillock said sightings of Hector’s or M\u0101ui dolphins in this location were very rare.<\/p>\n
“This would be just the second confirmed sighting of a Hector\u2019s in Northland in 100 years.”<\/p>\n
Hector\u2019s dolphins were once found along the coast of the South Island as well as parts of the North Island. Today, Hector\u2019s dolphins were classified as nationally vulnerable and lived in different sub-populations around the South Island. They were only occasionally seen around the North Island.<\/p>\n
The M\u0101ui dolphin was a nationally critical subspecies of the Hector\u2019s dolphin, which is found on the west coast of the North Island, mainly between Taranaki and Kaipara Harbour. It was estimated just 54 adult M\u0101ui dolphins remain.<\/p>\n
The two species were not easily distinguishable from each other without genetic analysis but appeared different than other dolphins.<\/p>\n
Both Hector’s and M\u0101ui dolphins were grey and white, with black markings and a distinctive black rounded fin shaped like Mickey Mouse’s ear.<\/p>\n
“If the dolphin has a rounded fin, call it in,” was DOC\u2019s message to the public on reporting on the species.<\/p>\n
Any sightings should be reported to 0800 DOC HOT (0800 362 468) or via the SeaSpotter app (available for download on the App Store and Google Play).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Locals and visitors in the Bay of Islands are being urged to report sightings of a rare dolphin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1313,64,63,61397,128,338],"class_list":["post-370426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animals","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-northland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}