Kōrero: Marine conservation

Three sealers, Dick Norton (left), Harry Norton and an unidentified man who is holding a club, are pictured with clubbed seals on Campbell Island around 1914 or 1915. Seals were not usually shot, and the method of slaughter was barbaric: to save ammunition they were clubbed over the head while they lay sleeping or resting on the rocks. At the time, seals already had some legal protection and hunting was only allowed by licence in the wintertime.