Endangered
New Zealand sea lion
Phocarctos hookeri
The New Zealand sea lion, once known as Hooker's sea lion, and as pakake (for both male and female) or whakahao (male) and kake (female) in Māori, is a sea lion that is endemic to New Zealand and primarily breeds on New Zealand's subantarctic Auckland and Campbell islands, and have in recent years been slowly breeding and recolonising around the coast of New Zealand's South and Stewart islands.
The carnivore
New Zealand sea lion is a carnivore in the family Otariidae (order Carnivora) — Phocarctos hookeri.
Range and habitat
The main breeding populations are at the Auckland and Campbell Islands in the New Zealand subantarctic, where approximately 99% of the species' annual pup production occurs. There are currently three functioning breeding rookeries on the Auckland Islands. Most sea lions are born on Dundas Island.
The New Zealand sea lion, once known as Hooker's sea lion, and as pakake (for both male and female) or whakahao (male) and kake (female) in Māori, is a sea lion that is endemic to New Zealand and primarily breeds on New Zealand's subantarctic Auckland and Campbell islands, and have in recent years been slowly breeding and recolonising around the coast of New Zealand's South and Stewart islands. The mainland population was estimated to reach 1000 animals by 2044, leading to issues of 'marine protected areas, local fishing quotas and numbers management'.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
In the breeding season, female New Zealand sea lions gradually move inland with their pups to protect them from harassment by males, wind, storms, and potential parasitic infections. The New Zealand sea lion population estimate is less than 10,000 individuals and fewer than 5,000 breeding adults.
In crisis
This number has declined from an estimated population of over 15,000 in the early 2000s, and it is one of the world's rarest sea lion species.
New Zealand sea lion is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on New Zealand sea lion, Wikidata item Q432513. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
