Kangaroo Island

This was our second trip to Kangaroo Island. Several years ago we visited it with the North Carolina Zoological Society and found it to be an amazing collection of wildlife. This time we only had a few hours, so we concentrated on a very small portion of the island.

We first made a brief stop at Pennington Bay to see the beautiful vista in Picture 1. Australia is one glorious beach after another.

Our second stop was at Seal Bay Conservation Park. The seal family contains walrus’, true seals and eared seals, which are generally called sea lions. The beach shown in picture 2 is home to approximately 600 endangered Australian Sea Lions. These are large animals, with the largest males weighing up to 600 pounds.

At any one time, there are only about 300 sea lions on the beach. The remaining sea lions are feeding at the bottom of the Southern Ocean up to 60 miles offshore. Each adult sets out for 3 days of hunting food. They cannot sleep during that time because they must constantly be on the lookout for great white sharks and orcas, who find them quite tasty. After 3 days they return to the beach to collapse for 3 days of rest. Then the cycle repeats. Picture 3 shows a close-up of one tired sea lion!

The mothers are the most amazing. They give birth and are pregnant again within 2 weeks. So they swim out, leaving babies onshore, feed, return to baby, who then nurses for 3 days straight. At the same time, mother needs nourishment for the growing fetus. They are the hardest-working mothers on the planet! Picture 4 shows a baby waiting for its mother to return. Picture 5 shows a picture of a very tired mother returning to a hungry baby, who is following her to a place where she can rest. They climbed a large sand dune, coming to rest under the boardwalk, as shown in Picture 6.

The laziest sea lions are the juvenile males, who haven’t reached sexual maturity and, therefore, don’t have to fight other males to dominate the beach and they still depend on Mother for food (for up to 18 months!). The only thing the young males do is play-fighting other males. Picture 7 shows 2 young males trying to look assertive. Picture 8 shows some of the early attempt to fight.

It was a great day spent marveling at these animals, followed by a glorious full moon as we sailed away from Kangaroo Island (Picture 9).