Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2013L01314:reg:2013:p5
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2013L01314
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2013 (pt 5/24)
Character Range: 11652–14502

are used to meet essential life cycle requirements (i.e. breeding). The other 18 sites are considered to be haul-out sites with only occasional breeding. There are also another 151 locations which have been recorded as haul out sites — places where Australian sea lions will come ashore to rest — but as this is based on opportunistic observations, it is likely to be an under-estimate of the total number of haul out sites currently used (Shaughnessy, et al., 2011).

Of the known breeding colonies, the largest occur in South Australia. In South Australia,
there are nine colonies where more than 100 pups have been recorded per season, which equates to 63 per cent of total pup production for the species. Of the remaining colonies across the species' range, most are small, with 51 colonies producing less than 30 pups per breeding season (DEWHA, 2010).

Adult males forage over the entire continental shelf, where they overlap with adult females, but adult males also forage in deeper waters further out to sea (Goldsworthy & Page, 2009). Biologically important areas for foraging by females and males have been identified through the Commonwealth South-west Marine Bioregional Planning process. Biologically Important Area maps and descriptions for foraging, haul-out and breeding sites are available in the Marine Bioregional Planning Conservation Values Atlas on the department's website at:
www.environment.gov.au/coasts/marineplans/cva/index.html.

Figure 1: Breeding distribution of the Australian sea lion, indicating the location and approximate pup number range of the 76 sites where Australian sea lion pups have been recorded. The number of sites within each pup number range is given in parentheses. Depth contours of 200, 500, 1000 and 2000 m (light to dark blue) are indicated (updated from DEWHA, 2010).

2.4 Breeding colonies

The Australian sea lion breeds in colonies, mostly on islands but also on the Australian mainland. Preferred breeding habitat ranges from rocky platforms at the base of cliffs to
low- lying limestone islands and sandy beaches.

The number of females in a colony varies among colonies. Recent genetic evidence
suggests that females exhibit an extreme form of natal site fidelity, known as natal philopatry (Campbell, 2003; Campbell, et al., 2008a; Lowther, et al., 2012). This means that females
will typically breed in the same colony in which they were born, with genetic differences in
the female line being evident in colonies as close as 20 km apart. Males disperse further,
but evidence suggests their dispersal range is limited to about 200 km (Hamer et al., 2013).
The result of this extreme pattern of natal philopatry is that the Australian sea lion is unlikely
to recolonise habitat or expand its range in the short to medium term.

2.5 Current abundance

Estimating the abundance of the