I'm very excited to tell you that, as you read this, I am exploring the coastline of Port Pegasus in Stewart Island's southeast quarter. I'm with a team from Doc Rakiura, and New Zealand's leading sea lion science expert, Louise Chilvers, documenting them as they locate, catch and tag the 2020 cohort of Port Pegasus sea lion pups.
It's an exciting assignment in a beautiful and mostly untouched part of New Zealand. It's my dream assignment in so many ways and I feel very fortunate to be here.
The Port Pegasus population is an encouraging development as the New Zealand sea lion/rapoka (Phocarctos hookeri) is thought to be be the world's rarest. With a population that oscillates around 12,000 and is listed as Nationally Vulnerable, the New Zealand sea lion once lived all around New Zealand's coastline, from Cape Reinga south.
So keeping tabs on this new Port Pegasus population helps Doc and scientists to track what appears to be a glimmer of hope for the species. Their success means we'll be sharing a lot more of our time in the ocean with these animals and I think that's pretty special.
See you at the beach ... Derek
PS Summer may be over, but looks like plenty of swell on the horizon for us this week with both coasts lighting up again. Might be time to pull that mental health day card. Could be worse, could be in Australia scrapping over dunny paper ...
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