The rarest marine dolphin on the planet swims in the waters along the West Coast of New Zealand\u2019s North Island. Today, less than 50 critically endangered M\u0101ui dolphins are thought to exist.<\/p>\n
Harmful practices used in some New Zealand fisheries are driving the dolphins to extinction: When fishers target commercial seafood species using gillnet and trawl gear \u2014 large nets that hang in the water for days or drag through the sea, scooping up everything in their path \u2014 the dolphins can become entangled and seriously harmed or killed.<\/p>\n
The U.S. government has allowed seafood imports from two New Zealand fisheries that use these practices without comparable safeguards in place to ensure the M\u0101ui dolphin population is able to recover to a sustainable level. This is despite the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), which requires the government to ban seafood imports from any foreign fishery that excessively harms marine mammals.<\/p>\n
Now, the United States Court of International Trade has ruled that the U.S. government\u2019s decision to allow these seafood imports ignored threats to all marine mammals, arbitrarily assessed impacts to M\u0101ui dolphins, and violated federal law. The Court\u2019s decision comes after Earthjustice and Law of the Wild filed suit in December 2024 to protect this dwindling species on behalf of the\u00a0grassroots group M\u0101ui and Hector\u2019s Dolphin Defenders, local New Zealand advocates working to raise awareness and spur action to protect these intelligent, social dolphins.<\/p>\n
M\u0101ui and Hector\u2019s Dolphin Defenders won a decisive victory on August 26, 2025 with the court commenting that \u201c[t]he deficiencies in the [U.S. Government\u2019s analysis] are severe.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0The court then set aside the U.S. Government\u2019s finding that these New Zealand fisheries do not kill or injure M\u0101ui dolphins or other marine mammals more than United States standards.<\/p>\n This court victory makes clear that the United States had no basis to conclude that New Zealand is doing enough to protect the M\u0101ui dolphin from fisheries. It also sets a higher standard for agency findings under the MMPA that will benefit marine mammals around the world.<\/p>\n As noted in an earlier blog, the MMPA provides for implementation of a trade ban for those fisheries that are not comparable to those in the United States<\/a>. A ban ensures that the seafood Americans eat will not contribute to the depletion or extinction of marine mammals in any part of the world. In addition, trade bans ensure that U.S. commercial fishers don\u2019t face unfair competition in the U.S. market from foreign seafood that was caught using harmful gear or under lower marine mammal protection standards.<\/p>\n The court in this instance declined to institute an immediate trade ban itself, but noted that an import ban may be required if the government \u201ccontinues to rely on an arbitrary and unlawful\u201d comparability finding. Instead, the court has ordered the U.S. Government to file a new comparability finding for these fisheries by November 24, 2025, and one which will, presumably, address the numerous deficiencies the court identified in its opinion. This means, unfortunately, that imports from fisheries impacting M\u0101ui dolphins are currently being allowed into the U.S. and onto our plates.<\/p>\n The U.S. Government has been reviewing fisheries around the globe to determine, just as they did with fisheries impacting M\u0101ui dolphins, whether or not they catch marine mammals in excess of U.S. standards. Because of their critically endangered status and fisheries being the main threat, in 2019 Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (in the United States) and Sea Shepherd New Zealand, compelled the U.S. government to review fisheries related to M\u0101ui dolphins in a separate and timelier process<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhy is there no trade ban in place?<\/h2>\n
How does this case fit in with other fisheries that import into the United States?<\/h2>\n