Battered and Broken

A battered leopard seal skull in the Puke Ariki Heritage Collection tells of a violent death on a New Plymouth beach. This fearsome looking skull, which has been shattered and then carefully reconstructed, belongs to a stray beast which hauled up to rest on Ngāmotu Beach in 1974 only to be confronted by police.

The details of what came next are still shrouded in mystery but the Antarctic voyager, which was over two metres long, was shot and killed and brought into Taranaki Museum. At the time the reason given for the shooting was "because it couldn't walk". While this is true in one sense, as leopard seals can't raise up on their front flippers, it seems an inadequate justification with the benefit of hindsight.

Leopard seals, which can grow up to about three and a half metres long and weigh 300-500 kilograms, are formidable hunters that feed on fish and krill but are capable of killing penguins, other seals and small dogs just as easily. The seals live on the Antarctic pack ice and they are infrequent visitors to the Taranaki coast. Thankfully, most of them return to sea unmolested.