There has been a sense of relief, of sorts, for Department of Conservation over the deaths of a number of seals near Christchurch.
Malicious actions aren't being ruled out, but it looks as if the 41 fur seals found dead at Te Oka Bay on Saturday died from natural causes.
DOC operations manager Andy Thompson says at this point it looks like the bodies have been there for a number of weeks.
"It's a bit of a relief, to be honest, and the reason is it leans itself more towards natural causes more than anything else."
Thompson says they can't rule out malicious behaviour, but they don't think that's the case this time.
"It is very upsetting for those individuals. Our key job at this stage is to monitor the situation and make sure it's something really adverse that's causing those deaths and making sure that it doesn't spread further."
Locals told DOC there were heavy, stormy seas about the time they think the seals died.
Thompson says it's not the first time this year that something like this has happened in the area.
"We've had some small events of smaller numbers of seals in the Southern Bays on Banks Peninsula, and often the seals have been a lot younger than what we've seen from the photograph so far."
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