Wellington, Feb 23 NZPA - Fishing industry efforts to trim protection for endangered Hector's and Maui's dolphins have had mixed results in the High Court at Wellington, after lawyers for the Federation of Commercial Fishermen attempted to block six proposed bans on set netting and inshore trawling.

The court today ruled that two of these restrictions should be referred back to Fisheries Minister Phil Heatley for reconsideration: the extension of set net closures on the North Island's West Coast from four nautical miles to seven nautical miles and the closure of an area of the South Island's East Coast to targeted fishing for butterfish.

But the court upheld four other 2008 restrictions challenged by the fishers. They were:

* Extension of a set netting prohibition further into the Manukau Harbour;

* The seasonal two nautical miles set net prohibition on the West Coast of the South Island;

* The four nautical mile set net closure outside Te Waewae Bay in Southland;

* And a decision not to exempt the targeted fishing of butterfish in the Bluff area.

Other closures of areas around the South Island and on the North Island's north-west coast to set net and drift net fishing by recreational fishers were not affected by the judgment and remain in force.

Mr Heatley said he would seek advice from officials on the implications of the judgment.

"This is an important judgment on a major issue for both commercial and recreational fishers and we are considering it carefully," he said.

Net fishing is the single biggest killer of the two endemic dolphin species, and a 2007 a report released by The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) found that between 110 and 150 dolphins drown in commercial set nets alone, around New Zealand every year.

Earlier this week a marine mammal expert, associate professor of zoology at Otago University Professor Liz Slooten said a special inshore Kaikoura fishing area should be axed after a commercial fisherman caught and killed a protected Hector's dolphin there last year.

She said the Hector's dolphin drowned in a commercial gill net 1.3 nautical miles offshore, southeast of the Haumuri Bluffs, last May, just before the fishing industry's court challenge.

New Zealand has signed several international treaties, such as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which oblige it to spare the dolphins from extinction.

The WWF New Zealand marine programme manager, Rebecca Bird, said at the end of the fishing industry case that a small section of the fishing industry and its lawyers should not prevail over the will of the New Zealand public, and legislation that was supposed to protect the dolphins.

"We still lack any clear plan to build up their numbers again," she said.

"We should be urgently preparing a species recovery plan".

Maui's is known as the world's rarest marine dolphin. Only an estimated 111 still survive today. Just 7270 of its South Island relative, Hector's dolphin, remain from a population of originally estimated at 29,000.

NZPA WGT kca mgr gt