The Sea Lion Whisperer

So Alastair and I are making a film about New Zealand Sea Lions, the rarest sea lions in the world. In the course of trying to learn as much about these animals as we can, we followed Shaun McConkey - I nicknamed him The Sea Lion Whisperer. Shaun has been sudying this tiny population on the mainland for 11 years. He has witnessed an amazing reptriation of this animal to the South island coast, all due to one pioneering female sea lion, called 'Mum'. Once sea lions were common all over New Zealand, in strong numbers. But overharvesting by Maori and European sealers caused a terrible decline. A tiny population resorted to a meager living in the sub Antarctic Islands. But Mum changed all that when she decided to make a go of it on the mainland. Since her daughters and granddaughters are philopatric, meaning they rear their young where they themselves were reared, the mainland might see a real sea lion colony on the mainland for the first time in more than 200 years.
Shaun is spearheading the Sea Lion Trust, which aims to protect this fragile species.