From Australian Oceans Data Network
JSON format icon JSON RDF format icon RDF ISO19115-3 XML

NESP MaC Project 4.14 - Enhancing monitoring approaches to evaluate the abundance, life history and critical habitats of the endangered Australian sea lion

Created 16/03/2026

Updated 16/03/2026

JSON format icon JSON RDF format icon RDF ISO19115-3 XML

This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub Research Plan 2024 project "Enhancing monitoring approaches to evaluate the abundance, life history and critical habitats of the endangered Australian sea lion". For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata.

The Australian sea lion (ASL; Neophoca cinerea) is Australia’s only endemic pinniped. Populations have declined by more than 60% over the last 40 years to extremely low levels, leading to its endangered status. Known threats to the species include fisheries bycatch, disease, pollution, entanglement in marine debris, and climate change. Improving our understanding of the species’ abundance, life history and critical habitats is essential for evaluating these threats and guiding recovery actions but is challenging due to the species’ unique life-history and breeding biology, longevity, demersal foraging behaviour and occupancy of remote breeding habitat.

This project aims to improve the monitoring and inform the management of Australian sea lions by developing cost-effective methods for acquiring abundance data from under-surveyed regions impacted by anthropogenic pressures. To do so, it will:

• Apply drones to enhance monitoring at suitable breeding and haul-out sites • Develop efficient techniques to process and analyse demographic data so that survival and reproductive success estimates from a microchipped population at Seal Bay can be routinely updated; and • Continue to deploy underwater cameras on sea lions to identify and understand critical habitats and risks.

Findings from these activities will underpin the National Recovery Team conservation efforts, in line with the Australian Government's Threatened Species Action Plan and Healthy Country plans.

Outputs • Qualitative and qualitative spatial assessments of breeding sites from helicopter surveys in Recherche Archipelago [dataset] • Drone-collected photogrammetry, FLIR, thermal imaging and LiDAR data [dataset] • Demographic results from analysis of Seal Bay microchipping program [dataset] • Tracking data from sea lion-deployed tags: location, depth, time, temperature, light, acceleration [dataset] • Timestamped video footage from sea lion-deployed cameras [dataset] • Short non-technical summaries to distil the key findings and take-home messages [written] • Final project report [written]

Files and APIs

Tags

Additional Info

Field Value
Title NESP MaC Project 4.14 - Enhancing monitoring approaches to evaluate the abundance, life history and critical habitats of the endangered Australian sea lion
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/2284abc7-bf03-4668-ac98-dd8eb9eda923
Contact Point
Australian Ocean Data Network
simon.goldsworthy@sa.gov.au
Reference Period 04/03/2024 - 27/03/2026
Geospatial Coverage Australia
Data Portal Australian Oceans Data Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Australian Oceans Data Network "NESP MaC Project 4.14 - Enhancing monitoring approaches to evaluate the abundance, life history and critical habitats of the endangered Australian sea lion". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://catalogue.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/nesp-mac-project-4-14-enhancing-monitoring-approaches-to-evaluate-the-abundance-life-history-an1