vessels, manned by 3000 sealers, were hunting seals south of the equator. The first commercial visit to the South Sandwich Islands was made in 1816 by another English ship, the Ann. The sealers pursued their trade in a most unsustainable manner, promptly reducing the fur seal population to near extermination. As a result, sealing activities on South Georgia had three marked peaks in 1786–1802, 1814–23, and 1869–1913 respectively, decreasing in between and gradually shifting to elephant seals taken for oil. Following the discovery of the South Shetland Islands in 1819, the sealing grounds were expanded to what is now the Antarctic Treaty area. Pacific Commercial sealing in the Australasian region appears to have started with the London-based Massachusetts-born Eber Bunker, master of the , who in November 1791 announced his intention to visit and hunt in New Zealand's Dusky Sound. Captain William Raven of the stationed a party at Dusky from 1792 to 1793, but the discovery in 1798-1799 of Bass Strait, between mainland Australia and Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) saw the sealers' focus shift there in 1798, when a gang including Daniel Cooper landed from the Nautilus on Cape Barren Island. With Bass Strait over-exploited by 1802, commercial attention returned to southern New Zealand waters, where Stewart Island/Rakiura and Foveaux Strait were explored, exploited and charted from 1803 to 1804. Thereafter, the sealing-industry focus shifted to the sub-Antarctic Antipodes Islands, 1805–1807, the Auckland Islands from 1806, the southeast coast of New Zealand's South Island, Otago Harbour and Solander Island by 1809, before focusing further to the south at the newly-discovered Campbell Island (discovered in January 1810) and Macquarie Island (discovered in July 1810) from 1810. During this period sealers were active on the southern coast of mainland Australia, for example at Kangaroo Island. This whole development has been called the first sealing boom; it sparked the Sealers' War (1810– ) in southern New Zealand. Australasian sealing measured its output in terms of skins. By about 1815 sealing in the Pacific had faded in importance. A brief revival occurred from 1823, but this proved very short-lived. Although highly profitable at times and affording New South Wales one of its earliest trade staples, sealing's unregulated character saw its self-destruction. Notable traders from Britain and based in Australia included Simeon Lord, Henry Kable, James Underwood and Robert Campbell. Plummers of London and the Whitneys of New York also became involved. By