Porpoise Bay is located in the Catlins

The Catlins

The Catlins comprises an area in the southeastern corner of the South Island of New Zealand. The area lies between Balclutha and Invercargill, straddling the boundary between the Otago and Southland regions...

 on the southern coast of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

's South Island

South Island

The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...

. The bay sweeps gently from North Head, at the entrance to Waikawa

Waikawa, Southland

Waikawa is the name of a small settlement in Southland, New Zealand, at the southwestern edge of The Catlins.The township is now a small fishing settlement, but at one time in the late 19th century was a major port, shipping timber from the sawmills of the Catlins north to help build the new town...

 Harbour, around to South Head. A campground overlooking the bay is situated on South Head, which separates Porpoise Bay from Curio Bay

Curio Bay

Located near the southern end of New Zealand's South Island, Curio Bay is a coastal embayment best known as the site of a petrified forest some 180 million years old. It also hosts a yellow-eyed penguin colony, arguably the rarest of penguin species, with approximately 1600 breeding pairs in the...

.

A pod of endangered Hector's Dolphin

Hector's Dolphin

Hector's dolphin is the best-known of the four dolphins in the genus Cephalorhynchus and is found only in New Zealand. At about 1.4 m in length, it is one of the smallest cetaceans....

s live here; dolphin-watching tours are conducted by boat from Waikawa, but they also can often be seen from the beach. In 2007, the Department of Conservation proposed including the bay in a group of new sanctuaries designed to protect marine mammals, some calling for a complete ban on set nets. Local fishermen protested, fearing for their livelihood.