Sea lion breeding colony status questionedKELLY BUCKLE/MPI A juvenile sea lion in Port Pegasus in January 2016. The legitimacy of a new sea lion population announced earlier this month by the Department of Conservation has been queried by a previous colony population counter. DOC declared the Stewart Island population of New Zealand sea lions to be a breeding colony on April 10, after 55 pups were born this season, seeing consistent numbers for several years. She didn't have an issue with the department working to keep sea lion numbers up, but said she thought there might have been political motivations behind last week's announcement. "It's possible this group reached breeding colony status some time ago, however until we had the numbers for this year we could not say for certain," he said.

Source: Stuff April 22, 2018 02:26 UTC