Ensuring sea lions experience positive welfare requires they have healthy ecosystems in which to swim, rest, play, find food, breed, rear offspring, and socialise. Encroaching developments in sea lion habitats can disrupt these ecosystems and threaten their welfare.

SPCA opposes human activities that result in the injuries or deaths of New Zealand sea lions. SPCA advocates for increased protection of sea lion welfare and recover the species to non-threatened status.

SPCA advocates that the government must take more practical action that aims for fisheries activities to result in zero mortality of sea lions. This could be achieved by changes to existing practices such as ending the use of bulk harvest fishing methods such as trawling sea lion habitat, and the using alternative fishing methods, such as jigging. SPCA advocates for the closing of commercial fisheries of prey species where sea lions who rely on these prey species are nutritionally stressed.

SPCA advocates for increased accountability of fisheries activities that impact sea lions, particularly around breeding populations.

Deaths caused as a direct or indirect result of entanglements in fishing nets or collisions with fishing gear cause suffering to the individual animal and reliant offspring, and negatively impact the population. The death of a sea lion mother impacts dependent offspring who may experience starvation, dehydration, and thermal stress.

SPCA opposes methods of fishing that will lead to the drowning of New Zealand sea lions.

SPCA acknowledges the adoption of sea lion exclusion devices (SLEDs) on commercial squid fishing boats has reduced observed bycatch of sea lions. SPCA advocates for more research and monitoring of the impacts of SLEDs to better understand unobserved deaths (cryptic mortality) of sea lions who may collide with but escape these devices and subsequently die.