Hector’s World^® is set in the beautiful waters of Aotearoa New Zealand.  Your students may be interested in learning more about the wonderful wildlife in this country where Hector and his friends live.  For more information about New Zealand’s native animals, you can explore the Department of Conservation website or The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society.

Hector has the distinctive long beak of a bottlenose dolphin

Hector is a bottlenose dolphin, and you can tell he is a bottlenose because: he has a pointed dorsal fin, he has no obvious body patterns (being grey with a white belly), and he has a long beak or ‘nose’.  Bottlenose dolphins are plentiful in New Zealand waters, and there are other interesting dolphin species as well.

Did you know that New Zealand is also home to Hector’s dolphins? (Click here for a fact sheet about the Hector’s dolphin.) Now there are just over 7500 of these unique dolphins left in the world.  To help protect them, your class could adopt a Hector’s dolphin.

Hector’s dolphin also has a close cousin that is even rarer - Maui’s dolphin is a subspecies of Hector’s. There are only around 100 left making them the world’s smallest and rarest marine dolphin. To learn more about this special little dolphin, visit New Zealand’s Department of Conservation website or WWF-New Zealand website.