Most Dunedin residents and visitors to the city consider themselves fortunate to be able to get up close to nature. They respect the rights and need for space of our southern wildlife. But there are always a few who think protected sea lions, seals and penguins are only there for them to toy with.
In recent days, a couple of reprehensible incidents have come to light in which ignorant or idiotic people have maliciously interfered with sea lions (rapoka/whakahao) on Otago Peninsula beaches. The first involved visitors at Sandfly Bay on Monday, posing for photographs and dancing only metres from sea lions; the second to be revealed was of a surfer at Allans Beach several weeks ago charging at a sea lion and then appearing to throw something at it.
Both events were photographed or captured on video. It would be naive to think that these happenings are anything other than the tip of the iceberg,
Bullies tend to pick on someone or something smaller, which makes this behaviour even harder to fathom. The displays of bravado were possibly sparked by a belief these rare marine mammals are big, tend to lumber around on land and look a bit dozy, therefore making them an easy target. But these halfwits have got that wrong - sea lions are incredibly strong and can move very quickly if provoked. Their bite is much more powerful than a dog's and would also be poisonous to humans.
The New Zealand sea lion is a regular visitor to the beaches around Dunedin, despite its ``nationally critical'' conservation status. There are an estimated 12,000 sea lions, most living at the subantarctic Campbell and Auckland islands, and increasingly breeding around the shores of Otago, Southland and Stewart Island.
Advice from the Department of Conservation is not to get any closer than 10m from a resting sea lion or 20m from an active one. The Allans Beach video shows the surfer coming well within the 20m range for a non-sleeping sea lion, at which point the bull starts to roar and the man runs to within a couple of metres of it.
The chairwoman of the New Zealand Sea Lion Trust, Jordana Whyte, believes local residents can model good behaviour for tourists. Doc has said it will not close beaches to protect the animals, but biodiversity ranger Jim Fyfe says the surfer could be prosecuted for harassing the sea lion under the Marine Mammals Protection Act. The dancing woman at Sandfly Bay also risks receiving a large fine, he says.
Something needs to be done about the situation, but what? The worst-case scenario of such teasing could involve injury or death to either sea lion or human. How would that look for the city and what impact might that have on its nature tourism offerings?
Somehow the message has to get through to the show-offs and the taunters that wildlife is not here purely for their own pleasure or to provide them with photographic opportunities.
Clear signage in several languages is one way of getting that across. Another suggestion, from Dunedin woman Glynis Corson who took the Sandfly Bay video, is for airlines to provide wildlife viewing advice on flight safety videos. Tourism operators and the Dunedin City Council must keep up efforts to ensure wildlife is respected.
And if local residents see more bad behaviour, they should not shy away from reporting it.
