Loper said department staff obtained a search warrant for Bolingford\u2019s address, and found \u201cseveral supermarket meat trays packed with dolphin flesh\u201d in a freezer.<\/p>\n
Bolingford told the Herald he did not believe he had done anything wrong.<\/p>\n
The butcher and recreational fisher said after finding the dead dolphin on the beach, he tried to return it to the ocean and cut two pieces of flesh from it \u201cso it would sink\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he threw one piece into the ocean and took the other home for \u201cmouse traps\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cut it off on one side and cut it off on the other side so that it would not float in the water,\u201d he told the Herald.<\/p>\n
The beach-cast dolphin at Thornton Bay in Coromandel before its flesh was removed. Photo \/ Department of Conservation<\/p>\n
Loper disputed Bolingford\u2019s account and said he had \u201cchanged his story\u201d several times.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he was challenged by members of the public, he stated he believed the animal was a shark \u2013 a claim he later revised to suggest he believed it was a tuna.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe also claimed to have returned the animal\u2019s remains to the sea, which was clearly not the case. He initially said he\u2019d taken the animal\u2019s parts for fish bait, which he later changed to claim it was for mouse traps.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loper said the dolphin flesh recovered from Bolingford\u2019s property weighed 2.71kg. Bolingford disputes that amount.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhotographic evidence obtained by DoC and the post-mortem clearly showed the animal was a dolphin and the physical evidence located at his property demonstrated he had taken much more than \u2018the two little pieces\u2019 he has claimed,\u201d Loper said.<\/p>\n
Common dolphins found in New Zealand waters belong to the species now known as the short-beaked common dolphin. Photo \/ Alan Gibson<\/p>\n
Loper said it is a breach of the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978 to touch or interfere with any part of a dead protected marine mammal.<\/p>\n
Bolingford said he wasn\u2019t aware of the rules and believed he was doing the \u201cright thing\u201d to protect the community from the dead animal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got dogs and [the dead dolphin] could\u2019ve poisoned one of the dogs or damaged one of their children.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommon sense would tell you, throw it back in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bolingford, who is Ng\u0101i Tahu, said his decision to move the dolphin was also influenced by advice from his grandmother that such animals \u201cbelong in the sea\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I hadn\u2019t done anything with that, she would have turned over in her bloody grave.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Bolingford said he returned the dolphin to the ocean, Loper said a witness reported seeing him drag it to the water\u2019s edge and leave it at the high-water line.<\/p>\n
After the dolphin parts were recovered, Loper said the man \u201ccontacted local iwi about taking the pieces of the animal\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir representative made it clear they did not support his actions and that he should not have done so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loper said that at the conclusion of the investigation, two $400 infringement notices were issued \u2013 \u201cone for taking the meat from the dolphin and one for possessing it\u201d.<\/p>\n
Loper said DoC staff \u201ctake an extremely dim view of this type of offending\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re astonished and disappointed the man felt he had the right to do this.<\/p>\n
Bolingford said he had sought advice about challenging the infringement notices.<\/p>\n
Loper said anyone who found a dead protected marine mammal on a beach should call 0800 DOC HOT so staff could liaise with iwi on the appropriate response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Loper said department staff obtained a search warrant for Bolingford\u2019s address, and found \u201cseveral supermarket meat trays packed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[74,195231,1389,22506,26034,45212,22195,67917,273,38550,1874,100816,78,16122,111,139,69,312,147,1870],"class_list":["post-630071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-after","tag-astonished","tag-conservation","tag-coromandel","tag-department","tag-disappointed","tag-doc","tag-dolphin","tag-environment","tag-flesh","tag-found","tag-freezer","tag-in","tag-mans","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-says","tag-science","tag-search"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}