The Commerce Department will be given a chance to voluntarily reconsider whether an export ban on certain seafood from New Zealand is warranted to protect a critically endangered dolphin, the U.S. Court of International Trade said, despite the objections of conservation groups worried about a delay. The Māui dolphin is the most endangered marine dolphin in the world, with just 57 individuals remaining as of 2016, according to Sea Shepherd New Zealand and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The groups say the incidental capture of dolphins in fisheries using gillnets and trawling in the dolphin's habitat around New Zealand's North Island is the cause of the species' drastic decline since the 1970s, and the biggest threat to its continued survival.
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