Christchurch, NZPA Jan 30 - Conservation groups today called for a halt to the new Auckland Islands squid fishing season until an investigation has been completed into the mystery deaths of about 700 Hooker's sea lion pups in the southern area.
Department of Conservation staff are expected to be carrying out post mortems into why one of the world' rarest seals have mysteriously died in an environmental catastrophe.
The $80 million industry fears Conservation Minister Nick Smith might consider closing down the fishery to prevent any more seal deaths.
The Auckland Island squid fishery was closed last season because trawlers accidentally caught about 100 sealions in their fishing nets.
DOC senior adviser on marine mammals Mike Donoghue said today more pups and adults could be lost.
`We may never know how many adults we have lost. It's a clearly a catastrophic impact for this year's breeding. It could be natural event, it could be a bacterial or viral event,'' he said.
World Wildlife Fund executive director Chris Laidlaw told NZPA that the seal species was already under threat of extinction and the situation was already critical.
``They are only a small number and we can't afford to lose that many. They have to look into this before the squid fishing season opens,'' he said.
The squid vessels are grouping near the Auckland Islands ready to start the new fishing season on Sunday.
Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society said squid trawling, which kills more than 80 sea lions a year, should not go ahead this year in the wake of the deaths.
Greenpeace has called for Dr Smith to immediately impose a 160km exclusion zone around the islands to prevent any more sealion deaths.
Dr Smith said he would not make a decision about what would happen to the squid fishery until more was known about what had caused the sealion pup deaths..
Squid Fishery Management Company chief executive Andrew Branson said the industry was dismayed and alarmed by the news of the deaths.
The company had several vessels in the area and had offered immediate assistance to DOC and the Ministry of Fisheries to investigate the incident.
Unusual marine events were cropping up all over the country with dead fish off the North Island's Wairarapa coast and dead crabs near Auckland.
Mr Laidlaw said there had been reports of unusual MARINE MAMMAL deaths in Latin America and South Africa in the past few weeks which could be caused by the El Nino weather, resulting in lack of food.