WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Conservation workers in New Zealand condemned the “cruel and senseless” killings of six fur seal pups, which were found decapitated in a popular bay on the country’s South Island.

Andy Thompson, a spokesman for New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, said in a statement that the police were investigating the deaths because of “the disturbing, brutal and violent nature of this crime.”

The bodies of the 11-month-old seals were found on Monday by a tourism operator in Scenery Nook, a remote but popular part of Banks Peninsula on the South Island.

Conservation workers could not find the seals’ heads, the statement said, and the department believed the animals had been killed elsewhere before being dumped from a boat.