Yoshiko Cowell writes;

The NZ sea lion appeared in the Otago Daily Times on the 3rd of September. The heading was “What are you doing on my Beach?” and photos of a young sea lion. One photo had the sea lion with its mouth open pointed  at seagulls in the air and another with its mouth open heading towards people who were running away. The photos alone made the sea lion look aggressive but then the comment by the photographer was that the sea lion appeared to be bad tempered, charging around the beach, snarling at beach-goers, kayakers and surfers. This reconfirmed what people would easily interpret the photos as. However there was a comment by the Department of Conservation staff saying that the sea lion could have been playing. When I have observe the way that sea lions interact with each other they can appear aggressive but they do seem to be play fighting instead as there are no big wounds and they like to be around each other. They are very sociable and because they are wild big animals they probably do appear to play aggressively to us. So this unfortunately gives the sea lions an impression of an aggressive animal. It highlights the importance of the role that the media play in influencing how we think about an animal.