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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-03-04 Daily Xml
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HENRY, THE SEA LION

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:15): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Environment and Conservation a question about the marine animal known to many as Henry.

Leave granted.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I understand that the Department for Environment and Heritage has embarked on a research program to track the movements of Henry, a large sea lion that is well known to locals around Glenelg and surrounds. Henry can often be seen basking in the marina and near the restaurants. Will the minister update the council on the progress of this very important study?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health) (15:16): I am delighted to update the chamber. This is a topic very dear to my heart, and I thank the honourable member for his most important and insightful question. I am pleased to inform the council that already this month a long electronic tracking program is writing some interesting data on the habits of our much loved local sea lion.

The project began during the recent full veterinary check of Henry, when DH staff decided to attach a harmless radio tracking device that will transmit signals on Henry's whereabouts not only to give departmental staff a reliable map of Henry's movements but also to give a valuable insight to the local community of the sea life that inhabit what Henry calls home.

All data available on Henry's whereabouts has been posted online, and this information is available and accessible to anyone worldwide. It is quite an amazing website, and members who are interested—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! For a while there I thought Henry was in here!

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Obviously, members are very excited about Henry's progress, and I know they are all dying to log on to the website henrythesealion.com to learn more about this sea mammal.

The data gathered provides a tremendous insight into the travels of this sea lion, and the data indicates that he has already travelled well over 200 kilometres. Not only do we know where he is going but we also know how he is getting there. We are learning that he appears to be feeding on the sea floor mostly and that he is diving to depths of 13 metres on average and almost 30 metres on one occasion.

Sadly, though, this exercise has also been an attempt to gauge what human impacts Henry is having to live with. The main reason for attaching the transmitter to Henry in the first place was to gauge exactly where he is feeding and how far he is travelling due to the fact that DEH staff had noticed that Henry was losing weight and appeared to be most unwell. It was worrying when it was found that Henry was being handfed items that simply do not belong in a sea lion 's diet, including shark cutlets and cooked prawns. Even more worrying, it was found that Henry had eaten a plastic bag, no doubt discarded by a careless person and easily mistaken for squid or jelly fish.

It is findings like this which clearly give urgency to the government's plan to ban single use plastic bags. They are clearly a menace and contribute about 1,600 tonnes of plastic to our landfill and find their way into our rivers and oceans and can cause havoc, as we have seen with Henry.

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