Review 4 – NZ Hooker Sealion
I’ve often seen sealions referred to as “dogs of the sea”. To this, I would present seals instead – which are a far better fit for the title of ‘ocean puppies’ than the aforementioned Sealions.
While the plains of Africa get the Lions of legend, here in Aoeteroa we get their aquatic counterparts – The Hooker Sealion. Although they may not have the same press or public hype, sealions are no doubt a fierce predator worthy of respect. At the same time, they are also goofballs and are certainly more clown-like than Clown fish (sorry Nemo). One of the largest animals in NZ, getting up to 200cm for females and a whopping 350cm for males, they stand out a fair bit when you dive the coastline where they call home.
I’ve had the benefit of meeting a particular Sealion multiple times, a smaller friendly lion lovingly named “Terrence”. This young female (Gender revealed post naming), finds us weird, fur-free mammals fascinating, and when she’s around you’ll often find her near the surface – playing in the bubbles created by our air-tanks. If she’s not fixated on our stream of air, she’ll give us a closer look. Unfortunately, poor Terrence doesn’t have any hands, and so the way she “touches” things is with her mouth – reminiscent of a teething toddler. In fact a wetsuit glove was almost lost to her curiosity, with her being very confused as to why the tough black hand was hiding a smaller, pinker hand underneath. It can be alarming having a 1 metre length or so mammal come and ‘mouth touch’ your gear, especially when that gear is your only air supply at 8 metres down – but it’s all very gentle and so far we haven’t had a death by Terrence yet. However, Terry has also figured out how to interact with us without contact. Once, as we were checking our gauges in a circle at the bottom – I turned to notice Terrence sitting with us. She seemed interested enough that I showed her my gauge, and seeing her lean in to look at it was eerily human. We also play some copying games, and we found out Terrence will mimic our movements. You can do an underwater handstand, and look over to see an upside down sealion. You can spin around, and when she’s decided spinning looks fun – Terrence will join in.
9/10 – Ruthless predators, keen mimics, AND national treasures of Aotearoa.