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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-02-16 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

NEW ZEALAND FUR SEALS

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (15:08): Madam Speaker, before I do speak on the topic of my grieve, I would like to share, along with you, my concern at the behaviour in question time. What particularly galls me is the gratuitous and dismissive way in which the government treats questions from the opposition, much in the same way I fear that they are treating in a gratuitous and dismissive way the people of South Australia.

I would like to talk today about the issue of New Zealand fur seals and what is certainly increasing numbers around the coastline of South Australia. Certainly, the broader public have been aware of increasing numbers around Kangaroo Island over recent years. This has been highlighted in particular by a reduction in the number of little penguins to be found on Kangaroo Island. There is no doubt that little penguins are very much a part of the diet of New Zealand fur seals. It has also been reported to me by wildcatch fishers, aquaculture ranchers and also tourist and environmental operators on the Eyre Peninsula, Upper Spencer Gulf and around the West Coast, that fur seal numbers are increasing. Some suggest that they are increasing to a point where they are doubling every five or six years, so it is not an exponential rate of increase but it is a very dramatic rate of increase.

The history of the New Zealand fur seal is that they were hunted in the early days of Australia by the sealers and the whalers, and along the southern coast of South Australia fur seals were almost extinct by the 1850s. Here in South Australia, New Zealand fur seals have been protected since 1919 and we have seen their numbers grow. The concern we have is that they are beginning to have an impact on both the environment and various business operations around the coast.

There is competition for resources from New Zealand fur seals. Their natural diet consists of birds, little penguins—which we have already noted are a declining population—and also a large amount of squid. Much is known about their diet, behaviour and breeding. Squid forms a large part of their diet, so much so that there has been some suggestion that the recent decline we have seen in cuttlefish numbers at the top of Spencer Gulf can be duly attributed to the increasing number of New Zealand fur seals.

While much is known about their behaviour, diet and reproductive methods, very little is known about why their numbers are increasing or what we can do about it. There are analogies on the land with regard to abundant native species management plans, and I cite to you the instance of wombats, kangaroos, wallabies and koalas in various parts of the country where management plans have been implemented.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: And dingoes.

Mr TRELOAR: Dingoes is another one, thank you, member for Stuart. We are highlighting to the government that this is a serious issue. Although many studies have been done in the past and the suggestion has always been that management plans should be established, we have seen no attempt to establish a management plan at this stage. It is critical that it is done because we have reached a point, I believe, where a coordinated response is needed, and we are looking to the environment department, minister Caica and the Premier to do this.

It is time, indeed, for this Labor government to act and consider an appropriate management strategy for the future so that our wildcatch fisheries, our aquaculture and our marine habitat and environment generally are no longer impacted upon by what is becoming an abundant native species, so much so that they are becoming rogue.

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