Special visitor on the Clutha River
A week ago, something very unusual happened in Central Otago: a sea lion has swum 60km inland to give birth to her pup. The mother and pup were found up the Clutha River near Tuapeka in late January, which was a new and unexpected behaviour for this taoka species. The main reason pregnant females push inland is to escape the attention of males at this time of the year. At the site, DOC rangers found a healthy 15kg female pup. This birthplace is far way from their natural habitat at the southeastern coast of the South Island.
The mother is known as ‘Jade’ and is part of the Catlins population. Jade will now need to travel on a regular base to look for extra food along the coastline. Something they are able to as it is known that they can travel up to 80 km away from their nesting place to search for food.
If the little female puppy is later following her own instinct, there is a big chance she will come back to this place to give birth. This kind of sea lions (Pakake in Maori) have a threat status of “nationally vulnerable” with only 12.000 animals worldwide. So we hope the little puppy is doing well and will later help lifting the population number by starting up her own inland sea lion colony.
