Rising seal numbers and recent high tides have caused more seals to stray onto the Kaikoura coast highway.
In the past few weeks, two adults and a pup were killed by vehicles. The latest incident came last week at Ohau Point, 25km north of Kaikoura.
On Monday, seals were again reported on
the road above the Ohau Point seal colony.
Department of Conservation Kaikoura area supervisor Mike Morrissey said there had been an increase in seal numbers and pups in particular. "It's a combination of that and the big tides we've had lately."
DoC was in talks with Transit NZ about putting in fold-up seal-warning signs north and south of Ohau Pt and Barney's Rock, south of Kaikoura. Extra barriers at these spots had already been installed.
"The main concern is not during the day but at night, so signs would only be up at night in times of high tide," Mr Morrissey said.
All the seal deaths on the road had been at night, when the dark-coloured mammals were hard to see.
Further south, some of New Zealand's most endangered birds were playing chicken on State Highway 83 yesterday.
Three kaki (black stilts) were feeding in a large roadside puddle near Georgetown, 30km northwest of Oamaru, as traffic hurtled past.
Fish and Game New Zealand central South Island officer Graeme Hughes spotted the rare birds while travelling back to Kurow.
Mr Hughes contacted DoC's Twizel staff, who are running a breeding programme to save the bird.
Kaki Recovery Project scientist Richard Maloney said the three kaki seen at Georgetown were thought to have been part of a release of chicks into the Tasman River at the head of Lake Pukaki in January last year.
The three renegades were brothers and sisters, he said.
The number of kaki in the wild at the end of February was only 47, but that was a big increase on the previous year's tally of 39. There were eight breeding pairs.
DoC was keen to hear from people who had sighted kaki or other native birds in North Otago and South Canterbury.
- NZPA
