Call for cull of fur seals in South Australia's Coorong resisted by government as hurting the state's reputation
Long-nosed fur seals numbers bounced back along the South Australian coast from near extinction due to hunting between 1800 and 1830.
Image courtesy Canoe the Coorong
A cull of the growing number of long-nosed fur seals in the Coorong and lower lakes at the South Australian mouth of the River Murray was proposed again in federal parliament in 2021 but rejected by the state government. Tony Pasin, the member for Barker, he represented around 70 full-time employees in the region's fishing industry in calling for the cull.
Long-nosed fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri) were native to South Australia, although they were also called New Zealand fur seals where they were first decribed. About 100,000 seals were all along the South Australian coast in the 21st Century after being hunted to near extinction by sealers between 1800 and 1830. The South Australian population made up about 83% of long-nosed fur seals in Australia, increasing at about 5% a year. The seals were protected by state and federal law.
The seals first moved into the Coorong during the millennium drought in 2007, with reports of them ripping open fishers' nets, loitering around boats, stealing catchesand killing fish without eating them. They spread to the lower lakes to hunt carp plus sightings of them more than 130 kilometres up the River Murray at Mannum.
The local Aboriginal Ngarrindjeri people also pushed for a harvest of the seals or a catch-and-release programme, saying the seals never lived in the area before and were killing the main local totem, the pelican, and other native birds.
The state government tried methods to deter the seals including using underwater crackers to scare the seals away and nets up about 600 metres long. Temporary financial relief was given to commercial fishers who in many cases are losing all their catch to the seals. Coorong Wild Seafood co owner Tracy Hill told ABC News, Adelaide, the business had suffered significant losses. Her husband had changed his fishing practices and could only fish at night "where you can't have any lights on at all", not even a mobile phone light, because it attracted the seals.
The government remained opposed to a cull in 2021, saying it would be against "wider community values" and "damage the state's reputation as a food producer and tourist destination". It said overseas and interstate experience showed culling was an "ineffective way to reduce impact on fisheries" because it opened the way for another animals to move in and take advantage of available food.
The state environment and water department said overseas operations to remove young seals and pups from breeding colonies had been "extremely unpopular" and, with seal products banned in the European Union, commercial sealing would unlikely be "profitable or socially acceptable". Interstate attempts to move the seals, shifted by up to 400 kilometres, saw them return within 10 days.