Found only in Australia, the Australian sea lion has its principal breeding colonies at Kangaroo Island and Dangerous Reef, near Port Lincoln, in South Australia.
Smaller colonies exist on the west coast of SA and in Western Australia.
For example in 1996 at two colonies we found mortality rates of 30 per cent and 50 per cent respectively. The following year mortality decreased to only four per cent among Dangerous Reef sea lions but the worry is that we have no idea what's causing these dramatic fluctuations in pup mortality, says Dr Shaughnessy. Possible causes of death include parasites, such as hookworm, environmental perturbation causing food shortage for lactating female sea lions, high rates of aggression by adult males, direct human harassment or by interacting with fishing gear. The Australian sea lion is an endemic species which we need to take care of. It's a tourist icon, up there with the koala, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors to the sea lions' colonies every year.