Sealion blues

5th May 2011

We weren’t sorry to leave Flinders Chase Farm, not only freezing cold but home to rather over-familiar mice. One visited me in the bathroom, and another scampered onto the kitchen hob to see what we were cooking.

The other special mammal species on Kangaroo Island is the Australian Sealion, this being the only easily accessible colony in the world. Sadly this animal isn’t doing very well as a species. In the 18th and 19th centuries seal-hunting was big business and sealions along with various other seals were slaughtered almost to extinction. This particular beach remained a haven for the sealions because of some dangerous reefs right offshore that prevented the boats coming in to kill.

Some species of seal, like the New Zealand Fur Seal which also exists in large numbers on Kangaroo Island, have recovered very well in the last century but these Aussie sealions haven’t. They have a slower reproductive rate compared with other seals, and so just a handful of sealions getting entangled in all the marine rubbish we leave in the sea has a more dramatic effect than it would otherwise. This marine rubbish includes obvious things like fishing nets, but equally things like plastic bags which are dropped on land but end up in the sea where to a sealion they look like a squid snack.

You have to take a guided tour to go on the sealion beach, but on the positive side we got much closer than we would have on our own. It’s very stupid and dangerous – for both human and animal – to approach too close to any species that you’re not really familiar with, so we’ll only go close to wildlife if we’ve had guidance. The sealions are lovely animals. We watched one pup scramble out of the sand dunes and make his way slowly down the beach, trying to get a milk snack from every female he came to. I don’t know where his mother was, probably at sea as they hunt for three days at a time, but he looked well fed so I don’t think there was any problem.

Inspired perhaps, we went off and had a big lunch. Marrons are a type of big crayfish farmed in Australia and I can report they’re delicious in a curry as well as cooked simply with a wine sauce. We managed to put in some wine tasting as well, and you’ll be shocked to hear I voluntarily bought a Sauvignon Blanc. “Two Wheeler Creek Marron Farm, Winery and Cafe” is just the kind of place Australia seems to specialise in – nothing fancy, an unusual combination of stuff, and all good.

Later we took the last ferry off of Kangaroo Island in the dark and drove to Adelaide for an overnight stop. It’s been a pleasant couple of days.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 9th, 2011 at 9:34 am and is filed under Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.