New Zealanders back Save Our Sealions petition

10 July 2006 - Wellington

Contact: Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles 04 801 2210, 021 426 984

Forest & Bird’s SOS - Save Our Sealions petition has brought an overwhelming response, attracting more than 4000 signatures in its first month.

The online petition urges the government to reduce the annual New Zealand sealion ‘kill quota’ in the southern squid fishery to close to zero when it is set for the 2007 fishing season in late 2006.

The petition was launched a month ago to mark World Ocean Day (8 June) and in that time it has received 4137 signatures.

Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles says the response is fantastic, and reflects the deep concern among many New Zealanders about the unnecessary deaths suffered by sealions in squid trawl nets in New Zealand waters.

“Kiwis are proud to stand up on the world stage and oppose whaling, and they also know that our own threatened marine mammal species need protection here at home.”

“By taking the SOS - Save Our Sealions campaign online we’re empowering Kiwis to send the government a clear message on this urgent conservation issue.”

In an unprecedented move Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton increased the 2006 sealion ‘kill quota’ by 52% from 97 to 150 animals in April during this year’s fishing season, despite the risk that raising it will further contribute to the decline of the New Zealand sealion population.

Once common around all of New Zealand’s coastline, New Zealand sealions now breed only on a few sub-Antarctic islands and sporadically at Otago Peninsula, and are rarely seen elsewhere around the mainland.  A protected species under the Wildlife Act, there are now fewer than 12,000 animals and annual pup production has reduced by 30% over the last eight years. The continued use of squid trawling risks an even more rapid decline of this fragile population.

Forest & Bird is encouraging the squid fishing industry to adopt the jigging method of fishing, which does not harm sealions and produces better quality frozen squid.

Forest & Bird will continue to seek support for its online petition before delivering it to the minister ahead of his setting the next season’s kill quota late this year.  To sign the online petition - click here for link

Notes to Editors

1. The endemic New Zealand sealion (Phocarctos hookeri) is listed as a Vulnerable species on the 2004 IUCN (World Conservation Union) “Red List of Species Threatened with Extinction”. The species was formerly known as Hooker’s sealion.

2. Over 2,000 New Zealand sealions have been killed in the Auckland Islands squid fishery since 1980.

3. Each year for the past eleven years the Minister of Fisheries has set a ‘kill quota’ for the number of New Zealand sealions the squid fishing industry is allowed to drown in its fishing nets. The first ‘kill quota’ set in 1994 was 16 protected New Zealand sea lions. In 2003 the quota was set at 62, however the fishing industry took legal action to permit increased sea lion killing. As a result, the final number of protected New Zealand sea lions killed in 2003 was 144.

4. Jigging involves the use of small continuous-loop hooked lines which do not pose the same risk to non-target species as trawl nets and does not kill sealions. Jigging is currently used elsewhere in southern waters in the Falkland Islands squid fishery.