TWO Australian fishermen used their trawler as a gunboat to kill more than 40 rare seals basking on an island in a national park.
The attack on the usually uninhabited Kanowna Island, off Victoria, was witnessed by three university students who were camping there to study the seals. They had to run for cover when the fishing boat came inshore and heavy firing started from onboard.
The shooting has outraged conservationists, who claim that fishermen frequently carry out mass killings of protected seals because they believe that the animals deplete fish stocks. Police said that the Australian fur seals — the world’s fourth-rarest seal species — were shot with high-powered rifles.
The students later contacted police, who met a commercial fishing boat when it docked at the small port of San Remo. They found two rifles on the boat and arrested two fishermen, aged 29 and 19. The men were still being questioned yesterday and a police spokesman said it was likely that charges would be laid, including one of aggravated cruelty to animals, which carries a jail term.
Police went to the island yesterday to determine the number of seals killed and to check for any that had been wounded. John Thwaites, the environment minister of Victoria, said that he was dismayed by the killings. “I can’t imagine how anyone calling themselves a human being would do this sort of thing,” he said. “These are protected animals, they are rare animals and they’re one of the most important species we have.
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“We certainly have had incidents of kangaroos being killed and some other animals, but nothing of the size of this act. I’d rate this as extremely disturbing.”
Charles Franken, the wildlife manager at the department of sustainability in Victoria, said: “I am well aware that this practice goes on and the commercial fishing sector knows that as well. Without the people on the island it would have gone undetected.”
Mark Rodrigue, marine coasts officer at Parks Victoria, said that the slaughter was likely to be the worst since seal hunting was declared illegal in Victoria in 1891.
The Australian Government said that it would review national penalties for the slaughter of seals.