Greenpeace and the University of Auckland are pushing the boat out to try and track the winter movements of the endangered Maui dolphin.

Teams of researchers have this week been out looking for the small dolphin off the west coast of Auckland.

Greenpeace New Zealand Executive Director Dr Russel Norman said they know the dolphins' habits during the summer, but they're trying to work out how far offshore they go during the winter.

"In terms of their in-shore habitat, there's some protections against set-netting and trawling, which is the main thing that kills them but there aren't protections further off-shore.

"If we find them further off-shore then we obviously need to move to increase their protection."

He said researchers have been have waiting for the sea to be both cold and flat so the dolphins can be spotted under the surface.

"This time of year is quite difficult but we've actually been looking for windows in the weather and we did find a window in the last week and we were able get out and have a good look and we did actually find three Maui dolphins which is actually five percent of the entire global population," he said.

Dr Norman said research will continue until the water warms up in December.

There are only 63 of the endangered dolphin species left in the world.