New Zealand Sea Lion

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New Zealand Sea Lion
New Zealand (Hooker's) Sea Lion
Conservation status
Vulnerable (IUCN 2.3)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Carnivora Suborder: Pinnipedia Family: Otariidae Subfamily: Otariinae Genus: Phocarctos Peters, 1866 Species: P. hookeri
Binomial name
Phocarctos hookeri (Gray, 1844)

The New Zealand Sea Lion (Phocarctos hookeri) also known as Hooker's Sea Lion or Whakahao in Māori is a species of sea lion that breeds around the coast of New Zealand's South Island and Stewart Island/Rakiura to some extent, and to a greater extent around New Zealand's sub-antarctic islands, especially the Auckland Islands.

Conservation

As one of the larger New Zealand animals, it has been a protected species since the 1890s.

It has been inferred from middens that the Hooker's sea lion was made locally extinct in the Chatham Islands due to predation by the Moriori.^[1]

There was thought to be a population of around 15,000 in the mid-1990s. This may have declined somewhat since an outbreak of disease in 1998 caused the deaths of an estimated 20% of adult females and 50% of pups that year. Estimates (based on pup-counts) are about 13,000 for 2004.

A judgment of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand issued on 7 April 2004, with the reasons issued separately on 13 July 2004 (CA39/04), overturned a restrictive decision by the Minister of Fisheries, which had been based on advice from the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries; the Court allowed squid fishers a bycatch of up to 124 sea lions in the 2004 season, as against the 62 specified by the Minister. As the species is considered to be far from endangered, the Court considered that the Minister's imposition of the lower figure (one of the lowest ever imposed in the 20-year history of such restrictions) was going beyond what the law required.

Gallery

New Zealand (Hooker's) Sea Lions on an Enderby Island beach.

New Zealand (Hooker's) Sea Lions are surprisingly good climbers. This pup has been left by its mother adjacent to a coastwatcher hut on Auckland Is (altitude approx 600 ft).

One male and two female New Zealand (Hooker's) Sea Lions in The Catlins, New Zealand.

New Zealand Sea Lion is nursing at Enderby Island, New Zealand

References

This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate.

• Seal Specialist Group (1996). Phocarctos hookeri. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Listed as Vulnerable (VU D2 v2.3)
• ARKive - images and movies of the Hooker's sea lion (Phocarctos hookeri)
• Randall R. Reeves, Brent S. Stewart, Phillip J. Clapham and James A. Powell (2002). National Audubon Society Guide to Marine Mammals of the World. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. ISBN 0375411410. 
• Encyclopedia of New Zealand article