Maintaining the monitoring of pup production at key Australian sea lion colonies in South Australia (2013/14) Simon D Goldsworthy, Alice I Mackay, Peter D Shaughnessy, Fred Bailleul and Clive R McMahon SARDI Publication No. F2010/000665-4 SARDI Research Report Series No. 818 SARDI Aquatics Sciences PO Box 120 Henley Beach SA 5022 December 2014 Final report to the Australian Marine Mammal Centre Goldsworthy, S.D. et al. Australian sea lion population monitoring Maintaining the monitoring of pup production at key Australian sea lion colonies in South Australia (2013/14) Final report to the Australian Marine Mammal Centre Simon D Goldsworthy, Alice I Mackay, Peter D Shaughnessy, Fred Bailleul and Clive R McMahon SARDI Publication No. F2010/000665-4 SARDI Research Report Series No. 818 December 2014 II Goldsworthy, S.D. et al. Australian sea lion population monitoring This publication may be cited as: Goldsworthy, S.D.1, Mackay, A.I.1, Shaughnessy, P.D. 1, 2, Bailleul, F1 and McMahon, C.R.3 (2014). Maintaining the monitoring of pup production at key Australian sea lion colonies in South Australia (2013/14). Final Report to the Australian Marine Mammal Centre. South Australian Research and Development Institute (Aquatic Sciences), Adelaide. SARDI Publication No. F2010/000665-4. SARDI Research Report Series No. 818. 66pp. Cover Photo: Alice I. Mackay 1 SARDI Aquatic Sciences, PO Box 120, Henley Beach, SA 5022 2South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA, 5000 3 Sydney Institute of Marine Science, 19 Chowder Bay Road, Mosman NSW, 2088 South Australian Research and Development Institute SARDI Aquatic Sciences 2 Hamra Avenue West Beach SA 5024 Telephone: (08) 8207 5400 Facsimile: (08) 8207 5406 http://www.sardi.sa.gov.au DISCLAIMER The authors warrant that they have taken all reasonable care in producing this report. The report has been through the SARDI internal review process, and has been formally approved for release by the Research Chief, Aquatic Sciences. Although all reasonable efforts have been made to ensure quality, SARDI does not warrant that the information in this report is free from errors or omissions. SARDI does not accept any liability for the contents of this report or for any consequences arising from its use or any reliance placed upon it. The SARDI Report Series is an Administrative Report Series which has not been reviewed outside the department and is not considered peer-reviewed literature. Material presented in these Administrative Reports may later be published in formal peer- reviewed scientific literature. © 2014 SARDI This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), no part may be reproduced by any process, electronic or otherwise, without the specific written permission of the copyright owner. Neither may information be stored electronically in any form whatsoever without such permission. Printed in Adelaide: December 2014 SARDI Publication No. F2010/000665-4 SARDI Research Report Series No. 818 Author(s): Simon D Goldsworthy1, Alice I Mackay1, Peter D Shaughnessy1,2, Fred Bailleul1 and Clive R McMahon3 Reviewer(s): Kathryn Wiltshire and Ian Moody Approved by: Dr Marty Deveney Sub Program Leader – Marine Pests Signed: Date: 18 December 2014 Distribution: Australian Marine Mammal Centre, SAASC Library, University of Adelaide Library, Parliamentary Library, State Library and National Library Circulation: Public Domain III Goldsworthy, S.D. et al. Australian sea lion population monitoring TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... X 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................... 1 2. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 3 2.1. Background.................................................................................................................. 3 2.2. Objectives .................................................................................................................... 5 3. METHODS .......................................................................................................................... 6 3.1. Field sites .................................................................................................................... 6 3.2. Survey methodology ...................................................................................................10 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ...........................................................................................16 4.1. Jones and Olive Islands ..............................................................................................16 4.2. Nicolas Baudin Island .................................................................................................20 4.3. Blefuscu and Lilliput Islands ........................................................................................22 4.4. Dangerous Reef ..........................................................................................................29 4.5 English Island .............................................................................................................34 4.6 Seal Bay .....................................................................................................................44 4.7 Seal Slide ...................................................................................................................54 4.8 Additional colony surveys............................................................................................56 5. CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................................60 6. REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................62 IV Goldsworthy, S.D. et al. Australian sea lion population monitoring LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. The location of Australian sea lion breeding colonies in SA and the seven metapopulations as described by Goldsworthy et al. (2007c).. ................................................... 8 Figure 2. Map of Seal Bay breeding colony, Kangaroo Island, extended to Bay 2 (EPA 2) of the Eastern Prohibited Area (EPA). Pup Cove, Western Prohibited Area (WPA), Main Beach and EPA comprise the main areas of the site. ................................................................................... 9 Figure 3. Trends in the estimated ASL pup production at Jones Island over six consecutive breeding seasons (2004/05 to 2013). The inflated number for the 2010 season (red filled circle) is indicated. An exponential curve is fitted to the data (excluding the 2010 breeding season). .17 Figure 4. Trends in the estimated ASL pup production at Olive Island over six consecutive breeding seasons (2006 to 2013). Error bars represent upper (95%) and lower (absolute minimum) confidence limits; for the 2011/12 season they are too small to show. An exponential curve is fitted to the data. ..........................................................................................................19 Figure 5. Trends in the estimated ASL pup production at Lilliput and Blefuscu Islands over four consecutive breeding seasons (2007/08 to 2013). Error bars represent upper (95%) and lower (absolute minimum) confidence limits. An exponential curve is fitted to the data. ......................28 Figure 9. Proportion of Australian sea lion pups classified in three categories (black, brown and moulted) counted during five surveys at Dangerous Reef in the 2014 breeding season. ...........40 Figure 10. Estimated cumulative pup production of Australian sea lions during the 2014 breeding season at Dangerous Reef based on estimates of pup production up until 14 March 2014, and pup production on the next four surveys (14 May, 2-5 June, 2-4 July, and 14-18 October 2014). The sigmoidal curve fitted to the data assumes that the breeding season commenced on 1 March 2014. ..................................................................................................41 Figure 11. Trends in the abundance of Australian sea lion pups at Dangerous Reef for 15 breeding season between 1975 and 2014, including cumulative pup production (five breeding seasons), Petersen estimates (eight breeding seasons), minimum live and cumulative dead pup counts, maximum direct count of live pups and cumulative dead pups. Error bars around estimates are ± 95% CL. The value for the maximum Petersen estimate (plus cumulative dead pups) for 2011season is obscured behind the value for cumulative pup production. .................42 Figure 12. Comparison of three pup production metrics to estimate the abundance of Australian sea lion pups at Dangerous Reef over four consecutive breeding seasons (2006-07, 2008, 2009-10 and 2011). Error bars around estimates are ± 95% CL. Some points are obscured in 2008 and 2011. .........................................................................................................................43 Figure 13. The survival (closed circles - above) and recapture probability (closed triangles- below)) estimates for Australian sea lions in 2006-07, 2008, 209-10 and 2011. There are V Goldsworthy, S.D. et al. Australian sea lion population monitoring differences between the recapture rates and these show considerable inter-annual variation. The vertical bars are the 95% confidence intervals,