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Tuesday 10 April 2018
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Call for seal safety on the beach Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au THERE is no doubting the attraction of a seal resting or sunning itself on beaches around the Mornington Peninsula. But the animals are unaware of the excitement and interest they cause and can suffer as a result. Wildlife activists are calling for fresh protocols to manage and protect the seals whenever they are spotted. They say laws aimed at protecting seals are clear but rarely enforced. Harming a seal can attract a $6000 fine or six months’ jail and there are limits to how close people, or dogs are allowed. It is illegal to touch or feed a seal. “Over the past two years seals resting on peninsula beaches have endured crowds of onlookers, dog attacks, jet ski harassment, drunken people riding on them, objects thrown at them, kicked, yelled at, poked and chased back into the water,” Australian Wildlife Protection Council president Craig Thomson said.
“The peninsula community and local wildlife groups are very concerned that if the seals are not protected and a seal acts to protect itself, it may be seen as a risk to public safety and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) may see fit to destroy the animal.” Mr Thomson said “pleas for help” from government authorities to or-
ganise a meeting “of all stakeholders … have fallen on deaf ears”. Mr Thomson and the wildlife protection council’s secretary Eve Kelly last week sent out a detailed account of what happened to some of the 171 volunteer alerts for seals from Edithvale to Portsea between December 2016 and March 2018. Continued Page 9
No break for Easter drivers Stephen Taylor steve@mpnews.com.au THE police traffic Operation Nexus held over the Easter holiday period tested 11,474 drivers for drink-and-drug driving across Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula. The state-wide operation, which ran from late on the Thursday before Easter to midnight on Easter Monday, tested
7760 drivers on the peninsula and 3714 in the wider Frankston area in Southern Metro Division 4. Of these, 36 were detected exceeding the 0.05 per cent limit – or, in the case of P-platers, breaching the mandatory four-year zero-alcohol limit. Acting senior sergeant Peter Martin, of Somerville Highway Patrol, said the figures meant the division had the second-highest number of drink-ordrug driving arrests in the state over the
holiday period. In one case, Somerville Highway Patrol police who pulled a driver over for a preliminary breath test at McCrae on Easter Sunday evening were taken aback when he allegedly grabbed a can of beer and sculled it in front of them. After giving the police “some novel ideas about where they could put their breath-testing machine” allegedly attempted to scull another can but was restrained and arrested for being drunk.
Acting senior sergeant Peter Martin said the man, 45, was taken to Rosebud police station where he was charged and bailed for failing to remain for a breath test, resist police and being drunk. His licence was suspended and he will appear at Dromana Magistrates’ Court in June. On Easter Saturday, Somerville highway police said a Frankston man, 47, who failed to stop at a preliminary breath-test site in Skye Road, Frankston,
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later allegedly tried to hide his car at a commercial car wash. Acting senior sergeant Martin said he watched as the man drove past the police breath-testers and into a nearby service station where he parked at the car wash. The man then went into the shop and bought two litres of milk. “We were like: ‘What the hell is he doing?’” Acting senior sergeant Martin said. Continued Page 4