The New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries has recently published its new Initial Position Paper (IPP) on the management of bycatch of New Zealand sea lions in squid fishery around the Auckland Islands. This is a proposal that will be given to the Minister for approval. As this is a proposal, there is now a chance for consultation. I would like to encourage international people who have relevant expertise to check out this document so that they can write a submission if they would like to. The main changes to the current management is that mortality of sea lions in squid fishery will now be considered nil due to the use of SLEDs (sea lion exclusion devices). Therefore, the Ministry of Fisheries argues that fishing has no or little impact on the decline of the New Zealand sea lion pup production and it advocates for the removal of fishing-related mortality limits (FRML) to the squid fishery. The written submissions made will be published online on the Ministry of Fisheries website. They are due on the 23rd Dec. The IPP can be downloaded here and has the contact details to make submissions on it: http://www.fish.govt.nz/en-nz/Consultations/Squid+fishery+around+the+Aucklan... Regards, Dr Amélie Augé, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand