The New Zealand sea lions are one of the rarest species of sea lions in the world. We're here
down at Cape Palliser and what we're doing is we're trialling a shelter that we've designed for the
New Zealand sea lion pup, where we have a high mortality rate. We believe it's potentially
exposure and the area that they live in is a really flat, exposed, kind of rock and boggy
platform. We've been talking now for a couple of years about constructing a shelter that would help
provide some coverage. It's so nice to see it for the first time.
We're very happy for us all to be here and attempting to see if we can do something
better for those sea lions down in the southern oceans.
Let it rain. Let it pour. Let it blow. We want this to have as much of a test as possible.
I'll just kind of run through a quick plan of how it's gonna go today. Once everyone's
happy that we've got everything we need, then we'll start preparing the site to do the base.
We'll get the sandbags ready to help build the base. Once that's sorted and you guys
are on to actually building the shelter, then we'll start setting up the cameras.
Excellent. This is the day! It's a beautiful day. Lovely weather, put it all together.
We've loaded up the utes with a few extra bits. The test site is slightly different
but we're going to bring everything that they would need
actually for the island itself. So that they'll know exactly how to put it together.
So there's a few things that I would like to see. The way that we've been able to install
the shelter - relatively easily without too many challenges. To understand the learnings
from that installation. Another measure of success is that the pups use the shelter
and it may be that in this location they'll use it more for curiosity, because there is
actually quite a lot of sheltered areas and that, if we are able to capture some images
of pups within the shelter, I think that would just be the cherry on top of the cake.
Cool. That's pretty good.
We've got some koi log, which is a biodegradable product, but it's just going to help sort of pack up
the middle of the base of the pup shelter. The reason why we're going through this
sort of process is on Campbell Island the terrain's really uneven. We won't have
such flat places, but we will have to sort of boost up maybe one side of
the shelter, so we use the koi log to do that. You can actually put it under the matting
on the ends - under the sandbags. I understand. So that's enough to get us through right?
This is obviously iwi land, it's a protected site. We will actually respect that by not putting
any foundations in here that can actually harm the land. Generally, if we're actually on rocky
ground we would actually anchor point it and put chem bolts and that sort of thing in to
anchor the unit down. So we actually had to come up with a different sort of solution.
It's very, very much trial and error. The nice thing about this is that it appears that it will work. Now it's just
a matter of making sure that it does. What do you think? It's a lie on job. Ah cool nice!
This is good.
So putting the actual unit together, it was probably a lot quicker than everybody thought.
Absolutely elated to be honest. To actually see it go up in such a short time frame.
Awesome, very good!
To see it in the flesh in a real location with seals wandering around in close proximity
was just mind-blowing really. So yeah, I think the whole team was quite euphoric,
to sit back and relax and then realise what we've done.
Wow, you're awesome. Thank you! Nice work! Great job.
Awesome job by everybody - everybody mucked in. Great to see the kids here - that's part
of their iwi and that's part of, you know they'll be the future protectors of this land and
for them to learn at a young age what we're trying to do here, I think is marvelous.
Hi guys!
I don't feel too comfortable, but the seals will probably love it!
You've got the best school holiday story of anyone when you go back to school.
In the school holidays I hopped in a seal house!
All of this environment is part and parcel of us. What's here is part of our ecology.
They're starting to recognise it as a protected seal colony.
That's what we want, as this stays protected and preserved.
That's our job as kaitiaki to be the guardians of this area. They're going to be standing here
in another 10 years - they can tell people about the pup hut. That's the future, that's our future.
They're going to keep that memory alive. It just feels special that we can share this with others.
And others are caring about it and showing their manaakitanga. I woke up this morning just
feeling great eh. I know I was the first one up and I know, I couldn't help it. I just can't wait
to wake up in the morning. Hopefully we've got some good captures on the videos and cameras.
Looking forward to it, looking forward to tomorrow!
Awesome. Rain gauge is in. Cameras are in. The thermochrons are in. Everything's in!
Awesome! Yay awesome job team! Good work!
I don't know how many sleepless nights I've had in the lead-up to this and
just hoping that shipments would come in, getting the teams of people together.
Actually seeing it in place is super exciting and a huge relief. So I'll sleep really well tonight.
Good morning! It's been blowing all night - a real hoolie. So it's certainly going to have or have had
a nice wind test and I think we can just about see that it's still standing. But we'll have a
closer inspection and see how it faired. Just getting ready to go and do our first set of environmental
readings and check if anybody's using the shelter. Hopefully we see some seal pups!
The key things for the monitoring - we're taking weather and environmental readings. We're doing
counts of the seals that are in or around the shelter. We also have a series of trail cameras
set up to take images. We have little temperature and humidity loggers. We also have a rain gauge.
To put that in context - if we don't see a lot of activity with it, but the weather was really fine
then that makes sense.If we have a big storm come through and then
a lot of seals pile into it, then that also makes sense.
Cool! So that's all of that. So now we can go and take a look at what's on the SD cards
and see if there's anything exciting. This is not the one inside.
I don't know if we'll really pick up much at all.
Oh there's a seal, awesome! Yes! That's what we wanted to see. That's so cool.
Well we're seeing some faces. Just out the side of this shelter here, we've got two little pups.
Very close. Investigating it, having a look in. They're not inside it, they're checking out the camera definitely.
I think they're going to investigate it even more. This is the first night.
It might be the same ones tomorrow night or tonight. Good signs. Yeah very good signs.
They looked inquisitive to me. After the end of the trial we'll take it down, we'll look at all the
data and assess whether or not anything needs tweaking. How many we might want to produce for
taking to Campbell Island. Although I'm very confident this prototype will do very well in its
current form, we've noticed a few things that would improve the installation time and actually perhaps
have less people involved. So I think there are some lovely learnings, but there's also
great confidence that even the prototype we have here will pass muster.
It's exciting because we've got mokos (grandkids) here to observe, engage. Just watching them...
makes my heart flutter. These people are showing them how much they care about it. They can feel that.
I think the environment, the more and more they're exposed to that, the more important they'll
see it - because they are the legacy, they are the future. It's been a great collaboration - we have
mana whenua and DOC members who will be here the whole time to do the observations. It allows for ensuring
that the values of the land, but also the kekeno (fur seal) are protected. We're finishing our
morning on I think a positive note, going through some of those images. Yeah.
We just had two, just pass the shelter. That was with us here. So i think they're pretty comfortable
with the shelter here at the moment. But I'm feeling good. I think we'll be successful.
Well we're here at administration at Auckland Zoo. We've been back for...how long have we been
back now? Two weeks? Two weeks yeah. We've just received the video footage and some of the jpegs
from the camera, the trap cameras that we'd had installed around
around the pod. Which is going to be really interesting to see how they're using it.
Right we'll go on to one of the night videos I think... just see. Oh look! Wow! Awesome!
This one looks a little bit wet. Yeah that's been for a swim hasn't it.
Oh there's two. Wow! Two pups. Oh neat. That is a real nice thing to see. We had a
catch up with Laura and she said that we've had five pups enter the shelter for about
10 to 12 hours and five pups that sort of entered for short periods of time, up to sort of an hour or two.
Throughout that time we had the pups inside the shelter, but we also had some pups come up and
lean against the side of the A-frame shelter as well to get that wind protection.
This is so amazing to see it fulfilling the tasks that we designed it to do right? Yeah.
Not only seeing one pup in there but we're seeing multiple pups in there - playing, grooming and
you know, seeking shelter. I mean we had this idea but not until you see seal pups in there
do you really think - oh this is going to work. You know? Before you have the trial.
Aw that's really cute. I've got to watch that one again. I think what drove me - once I was invited
to be involved with this particular project - has given me an opportunity to actually
realise that you know - I want to leave the planet a better place than when I entered it
and i've got to think of my children and my children's children as to what we're going to leave.
Mahitahi - it means this project, because it has been a collaboration to work on one project.
For one goal. I'm incredibly proud of that achievement.
Mahi is work, tahi is one and we worked as one. That was the true definition of mahitahi.
Seeing a species that loves the ocean just as much as myself, it really inspires me to drive and
work for these guys and do as much as we can for them out in the wild. I'd love to see
more sea lions along our coastline and in maybe 20 - 50 years we might start
to see that as long as we keep working. Trying to help this population that's currently in decline.