A Ministry for Primary Industries spokesman yesterday confirmed ministry reports this week that the dolphin was caught 11 nautical miles away from the area were incorrect.
The error in reporting the location of the bycatch came after the fisher first failed to identify it was a Hector’s dolphin caught in the set net and initially reported it as a dusky dolphin.
The fishing vessel left the area and reported a dolphin had been captured more than 10 nautical miles away.
Fisheries New Zealand acting fisheries management director Marianne Lukkien said the November 10 catch reported by MPI this week was reported by the fisher on the same fishing trip and "within what we consider to be a reasonable amount of time following the event".
Fisheries New Zealand discovered the mistake regarding the recorded location of the capture through a normal "quality assurance process".
"The issue was caused by our system tagging the report with the geolocation of the vessel when the report was made, rather than the location of the fishing event that resulted in the capture.
"Voluntary or regulatory measures in response to this capture are under urgent consideration, and we are not able to confirm what these will be at this time.
"The capture has been referred to Fisheries Compliance, which will look into it to determine what action, if any, is appropriate in regard to the actions of the fisher," she said.
A breeding-age female Hector’s dolphin was caught in a set net in the area at the end of April.
That catch, with an observer on board, was the first reported fishing-related Hector’s dolphin death in the area since at least 2012.
Now, shortly after the rollout of cameras aboard all set-net vessels in the area, a second Hector’s dolphin had been reported caught.
The April bycatch resulted in a temporary closure of where the dolphin was caught.
However, that area reopened when the fishing year began on October 1.
He was "more forgiving" of the misreporting of the species, but he was concerned the boat would have travelled "well over an hour" before the capture was reported.
Further, he was disappointed the formerly closed area had been targeted so soon after it reopened.
Hector’s dolphins were not a particularly mobile species and the roughly 40 dolphins off Dunedin’s coast were most commonly seen in Blueskin Bay.
The same group of animals could be expected from Taiaroa Head in the south to Karitane in the north.
Closures were the only effective way to stop dolphins from being captured, he said.
"We are well past the stage of using anything else and there are no other proven effective measures that can be taken.
"Let’s face it, in the last six months, seven months, these fishers have killed 5% of the local population.
"That’s a big change.
"That is well more than the most optimistic estimates of how fast that population could grow with no other impacts and there are, of course, other impacts."
He said now, with cameras on boats this year, reported catches of protected species, including yellow-eyed penguins, would likely increase.
Ms Lukkien confirmed two yellow-eyed penguins (hoiho) had been reported captured in this quarter of the fishing year, both in the Southland set-netting fishery.
And as well as the November Hector’s catch at Otago Peninsula there had been one confirmed Hector’s dolphin caught in a set net in the Kaikoura area.
Fisheries New Zealand was also confirming details related to two further Hector’s dolphin captures on December 7 and again on Wednesday by a vessel operating in the bottom trawl fishery near the Banks Peninsula, Pegasus Bay area that triggered "vessel-specific measures" to reduce the risk of any further captures.
