December 18, 2015
Disco from hell for Taranaki dolphins
It’s bad techno time again for the Maui Dolphin.
Raglan marine conservation campaigner Phil McCabe from Kiwis Against Seabed Mining says more exploration permits for the Taranaki Bight is bad news for marine life.
Energy Minister Simon Bridges awarded the permits this week despite a clear message from the United Nations Climate Summit in Paris that dependence of fossil fuels had to end.
Mr McCabe says as well as the pollution risk from spills or blow outs that New Zealand is not in a position to manage, there is sonic pollution from the seismic surveys.
"They just run long straight lines and they have apparatus behind them that lets off a sonic boom every 15 seconds and that happens 24 hours a day seven days a week for weeks on end. I've been in the water and you can feel the pulse of each and every sonic boom through your whole body and I'm not a sensitive being so the cretaceans, the marines mammals that live out out there, the Maui's dolphins and the blue whales in the South Taranaki, I have very real concerns for them," he says.
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