Thursday 20 June 2019 10:58pm
Zoology postgraduate student Giverny Forbes with a young female leopard seal Novy at Westhaven marina in Auckland.
Leopard seals are generally associated with Antarctica and rank as one of the icy continent's top predators.
So when Owha the leopard seal decided that Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour and marina were a great place to set up home in 2015, it naturally caused quite a stir.
Giverny Forbes' first interaction with Owha the following year at the marina was during her undergraduate studies at Unitec when volunteering with the Department of Conservation (DoC).
"She could have attacked me, but she didn’t, which showed to me an intelligence which I found intriguing and made me want to learn more about what motivates their behaviour."
“Owha loomed up out of the water and we stared at each other for some time,” Miss Forbes says. “She could have attacked me, but she didn’t, which showed to me an intelligence which I found intriguing and made me want to learn more about what motivates their behaviour.”
It was a moment that Miss Forbes recalls had a huge impact on her, and even on subsequent interactions with Owha she never observed the seal’s reputation as a dangerous predator.
Her connection to leopard seals deepened, and when Miss Forbes heard about the birth of a pup on Dunedin’s St Kilda beach, she jumped on a plane to witness and document the world-first event.
Motivated by a strong desire to help Owha’s cause, Miss Forbes made the decision on New Year’s Eve that same year to move to Otago to study a Masters in Zoology.
“The experiences I had with leopard seals, and observing just how mysterious and intriguing they are, totally hooked me in,” she says.
“During undergraduate studies there’s a sense that everything is known about the world’s big megafauna, so to stumble across one that’s right here and that very little is known about is amazing.”
Miss Forbes' research is based around human interaction with leopard seals, such as the likelihood of interaction, what is likely to happen during those interactions, and management of those situations.
"We need to learn to co-exist ... and to do that we need to understand how to keep leopard seals and humans safe when they are found in close proximity."
Her research is particularly timely, as due to the work of LeopardSeals.org and NIWA, the classification of leopard seals has changed from Vagrant to Resident in DoC’s latest Marine Mammal Threat Classification System Report.
Miss Forbes' co-supervisor, Dr Krista Hupman from NIWA, reinforces the importance of this research for helping inform DoC on how to best manage leopard seals in urban environments.
“We need to learn to co-exist alongside these Resident animals in New Zealand and to do that we need to understand how to keep leopard seals and humans safe when they are found in close proximity,” Dr Hupman says.
To date Miss Forbes has observed 13 different seals, and her commitment to observing seals includes once driving three hours to Timaru.
“I could talk about leopard seals all day and am passionate about putting science into action and inspiring communities along the way,” she says.
As the seals are solitary animals that can haul out anywhere at any time, any related research is challenging.
Due to these factors, Miss Forbes requests that anyone who sights a leopard seal to please contact LeopardSeals.org or 0800 LEOPARD (0800 5367273) immediately.