Rare leopard seal pup born on Dunedin beach euthanised

Wednesday, 27 September 2017

A day-old leopard seal pup – the first of its kind to be born on mainland New Zealand in four decades – has been euthanised.

The pup was born on Dunedin's St Kilda beach on Tuesday morning, an 'extremely rare event', Department of Conservation (DOC) biodiversity ranger Jim Fyfe said.

The last recorded case of a leopard seal pup born on mainland New Zealand was in 1977, he said.

However, as its mother had not bonded with the pup, its chance of survival was minimal.

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By Wednesday the mother left the pup, which was very weak and unresponsive.

After being assessed by a vet and DOC staff, it was found that even if the mother returned the pup would not be able to feed and so the decision was made to euthanise it.

The beach near John Wilson Ocean Drive had been blocked off to reduce human interaction with the pup, Fyfe said.

Dalton WIlliams was running on the beach when he saw the leopard seal give birth to the pup.

'We saw it [the pup] struggling in the water and I just went in and saved it because it was drowning,' he told the Otago Daily TImes.

The mother appeared disinterested in the pup, he said.

Born to what is thought to be a first-time mother, the pup would have drowned shortly after birth had it not been taken from the water and placed near the mother by Dalton, Fyfe said.

The leopard seal birth came just days after a rare vagrant striped dolphin stranded on Warrington Beach, near Dunedin.

It was difficult to draw any conclusion from both events, he said.

Leopard seals were normally found along the edge of the Antarctic pack ice, but in winter, young animals moved throughout the southern ocean and sometimes visited New Zealand.

Pups are mainly born in the pack ice in November, with lactation lasting for a month.