About Seal Bay

With its unspoiled wilder­ness and stun­ning beau­ty, it is no sur­prise that Kan­ga­roo Island (KI) is con­sis­tent­ly in South Australia’s top ten tourist des­ti­na­tions, as vot­ed on Trip Advi­sor. And no trip to KI is com­plete with­out a vis­it to Seal Bay.

Seal Bay has been home to an Aus­tralian sea lion pop­u­la­tion for thou­sands of years, and offers one of the most excep­tion­al nature-based expe­ri­ences in the world.

There are no enclo­sures or cages at Seal Bay. Instead, you will be tak­en into the heart of the colony where our expe­ri­enced guides will teach you about these endan­gered ani­mals. If you pre­fer, you can set your own pace on the wheel­chair acces­si­ble 900 metre (return) board­walk which mean­ders through the dunes to a num­ber of view­ing platforms.

Aus­tralian sea lions are unique to South Aus­tralia and West­ern Aus­tralia. They are an endan­gered species – their total pop­u­la­tion is about 12,000. Seal Bay is the third largest colony of this mag­nif­i­cent, wild creature.

This is the only place in the world where you can see Aus­tralian sea lions at close quar­ters and walk on a beach where pups play, bulls fight for suprema­cy and rest­ing moth­ers suck­le their young.

At Seal Bay you’ll have incred­i­ble views of the extra­or­di­nary coast­line and sea lion colony, you’ll walk through an untouched dune sys­tem, and onto a pris­tine sandy beach. You will be giv­en unique insights into how these endan­gered ani­mals fish, surf, rest, inter­act with their pups and defend their territory.

Seal Bay Ecotourism

Eco­tourism is eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able tourism with a pri­ma­ry focus on expe­ri­enc­ing nat­ur­al areas that fos­ters envi­ron­men­tal and cul­tur­al under­stand­ing, appre­ci­a­tion and con­ser­va­tion, as defined by Eco­tourism Australia.

The aim of our eco­tourism prac­tices at Seal Bay is to edu­cate vis­i­tors about the impor­tance of con­serv­ing the endan­gered Aus­tralian sea lions, while fos­ter­ing a greater under­stand­ing and appre­ci­a­tion of the envi­ron­ment. Through our sus­tain­able busi­ness and inter­pre­ta­tion meth­ods, we hope to inspire peo­ple to become cus­to­di­ans of our Aus­tralian sea lion pop­u­la­tion for gen­er­a­tions to come.

What is ECO Certification?

The ECO Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram was devel­oped by Eco­tourism Aus­tralia to address the need to iden­ti­fy gen­uine nature and eco­tourism oper­a­tors in Australia.

The ECO Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram assures trav­ellers that cer­ti­fied prod­ucts are backed by a strong, well-man­aged com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able prac­tices and pro­vides high qual­i­ty nature-based tourism experiences.

Seal Bay was award­ed Advanced ECO Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by Eco­tourism Aus­tralia in 2017, which is the high­est lev­el of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion that can be award­ed. This sig­ni­fies our con­tin­u­al com­mit­ment to the con­ser­va­tion of our nat­ur­al sur­round­ings and facil­i­ta­tion of excep­tion­al and sus­tain­able tourism expe­ri­ences for vis­i­tors where they can learn about the impor­tance of the envi­ron­ment and its protection.