Seal culling in South Australia has particularly targeted Arctophoca forsteri, the indigenous long-nosed fur seal (also known as the New Zealand fur seal). Beginning in the last years of the 18th century, both fur seals and Australian sea lions were hunted along the south-east coast of the Australian continent. They were a valuable source of leather, and their bodies were rendered to obtain oil, which was used as lamp fuel, cooking oil, a lubricant, a constituent of soap, the liquid base for red ochre paint, and for processing materials such as leather and jute. During the 20th century, seals were sometimes culled on the assumption that they were competing with fishermen. Under the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 seals and other pinnipeds are now fully protected, although culling them remains a topic of public debate. Culling was strongly advocated for in 2015 in response to increasing interactions between seals and the fishing industry. As of 2016, there were an estimated 100,000 long-nosed fur seals in South Australian waters.
History Despite its common name, the New Zealand fur seal (A. forsteri) is a pinniped native to South Australia. Efforts to overcome that confusion have led to the increasing use of the common name, "long-nosed fur seal".
1800–1899 The species was heavily hunted by sealers in the early 19th century. Seals were clubbed to death by men who raided seal colonies and rookeries by boat, sometimes swimming ashore armed with clubs and knives. The sealers typically bludgeoned the animals to death and used knives to skin the carcasses. Pups were usually killed along with their mothers, but sometimes kept as pets. The hides of the seals were pickled in brine and exported, and the oil was a valuable source of income. Seal hunting continued to occur in Gulf St. Vincent into the 1880s. The colony of South Australia was only officially established in 1836, and so no baseline data exists for the South Australian seal population prior to the impact of hunting by Europeans. The gradual recovery of the population, spanning the past century, has brought them into increasing conflict with the state's fishing industry.
1900–1949 The killing of seals in South Australian waters continued into the 20th century, on the assumption that they were in competition with fishermen. 7,000 to 8,000 were estimated to have been killed in the six months prior to August 1918. One man alone, S. H. Sheridan of Glenelg, admitted to having killed 1,430 seals during that period on the islands of Spencer Gulf. Captain S. A. White, an "ardent nature lover", said of calls that seals should be killed for allegedly competing with fishermen:It is not the seals, poor creatures, but that ever destructive being, man, who has created the dearth [of fish]. It is high time the Governments of this country let a glimmer of natural science into their deliberations, and not go for advice to those who are fighting against nature and bringing dire consequences upon their heads.White estimated that prior to the European colonisation of South Australia, hundreds of thousands of seals likely inhabited its waters. In 1929, The Advertiser reported that men had been landing on islands in Spencer Gulf and "molesting seals." At that time the animals were protected under the Animals and Bird Protection Act. It was prohibited "for any person to land on Dangerous Reef with a gun or a dog, or to take seals on any of the islands or reefs within St. Vincent or Spencer Gulf north of a line from Cape Catastrophe to Cape Borda, continued to Cape Hart at the south-eastern corner of Kangaroo Island, thence to the mouth of the River Murray." Seals were known to enter inland river systems and were seen as far up the Murray–Darling system as Deniliquin, 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the mouth of the Murray. A hotel at Conargo once displayed the skin of a seal shot in the river nearby. Other accounts of inland seal sightings prior to 1933 include at Tyntynder, Pental Island, Echuca and near Swan Hill. Other sighting locations include Loxton and Mildura. Seen in this inland context, seals were often referred to as bunyips or otherwise misidentified. In 1940, some fishermen claimed to have suffered damage to their nets which they attributed to seals. The Chief Inspector of Fisheries and Game at the time suspected that some of the damage had not been done by seals, but rather by sharks. At that time, fishermen in the neighbouring state of Victoria were allowed to shoot seals which interfered with their fishing efforts or equipment.
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