Federal MP Jamie Briggs joins call for seal cull after witnessing ‘massacre’ of fairy penguins

FEDERAL MP Jamie Briggs has joined coastal community leaders and fishermen in calling on the State Government for a seal cull, saying he recently witnessed a “massacre” of dozens of fairy penguins on Kangaroo Island.

MP Jamie Briggs

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FEDERAL MP Jamie Briggs has joined coastal community leaders and fishermen in calling on the State Government for a seal cull, saying he recently witnessed a “massacre” of dozens of fairy penguins on Kangaroo Island.

The Liberal member for Mayo has written to Premier Jay Weatherill in response to concerns about the environmental and economic impacts caused by a “population explosion” of long-nosed fur seals.

“This is a problem caused by an out of control species that is not only destroying fish stocks but birds as well, pelicans,” he told the Sunday Mail.

“The penguin population around Kangaroo Island and Victor Harbor has been destroyed, it virtually doesn’t exist.”

Mr Briggs said the Federal Government had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars restocking the Lower Lakes with native fish following the drought years, but that effort was being undermined by seals “eating everything”.

He had witnessed a “massacre” of about 50 fairy penguins along the beach at Penneshaw, likening the seals to “a fox in the chook house” that “eat until they’re full and then keep killing”.

Federal Liberal MP Jamie Briggs.

“This is not about getting rid of seals in any way, it’s about population control,” he said.

“Just like we do with kangaroos, it is a reasonable thing to do.”

Mr Briggs said the issue was a State Government responsibility and he was yet to receive a response to his letter sent a fortnight ago.

Coorong District Council Mayor Neville Jaensch said the local fishing industry was “on its knees”, with at least two fishermen on suicide watch.

The “massacre” of dozens of fairy penguins by seals on Kangaroo Island has prompted a federal MP’s call to cull the mammals.

“In Meningie, 20 families who would lose their income is a very significant threat to that community,” he said.

While seal numbers were around 50 at the moment, Mr Jaensch said community estimates ranged from hundreds up to 1000 in peak season. He advocated a combination of shooting seals with use of underwater crackers, so the seals would learn to associate people and boats with danger and leave the Coorong.

Sea lions of SA’s Eyre Peninsula

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An Environment Department spokeswoman said there were 47 seals in the Coorong at last count, but that would rise as the animals returned from summer breeding grounds on offshore islands. The highest count last year was 102 in August. There are 100,000 seals in SA waters.

Environment Minister Ian Hunter said “the best available science” showed a cull would not work.

“We are instead focusing our resources on measures to reduce the impact of long nosed fur seal populations, including trialling different nets and underwater cracker deterrents,” he said.

Victor Harbor Mayor Graham Philp advocated tagging and relocating seals away from the Coorong in order to research their movements.