Hooker's Sealion: Threatened Too

Forest and Bird, Volume 20, Issue 4, 1 November 1989, Page 11

Hooker's Sealion: Threatened Too

ooker’s sealion, the world's rarest sealion with an estimated population of between 6-7,000, is this November converging on the chill waters around the Auckland Islands to breed. At the same time Japanese, Korean and Soviet trawlers arrive at the islands. Their target, and that of the sealions: squid. Between November and February more than 100 sealions will die, entangled in the trawl nets. Because of the small numbers of this marine mammal, the population loss each year in nets is far more serious than that suffered by the fur seal.

In most cases pregnant females are being caught as they take easy pickings from the flanks of the net being winched toward the boat. When she drowns, three sealions are lost: the mother, her pup which is waiting on shore, and the pup she is carrying from this season's mating. Forest and Bird believes that the current 12 mile fishing exclusion zone around the Auckland Islands is inadequate in providing realistic protection for the sealions. We are pressing for a marine mammal sanctuary that excludes trawl nets and set nets from the summer feeding grounds of the breeding sealions. The squid could be fished by jigging (as they are in almost every other squid fishery), and sealions will not be caught. y&