Seal cull suggested to protect cod stocks

OTTAWA – A Senate committee says Ottawa should approve a cull of 70,000 seals off Canada’s East Coast in a controversial four-year experiment aimed at helping the recovery of cod stocks.

The committee has spent almost a year studying a federal proposal to slaughter up to 70 per cent of the grey seal population in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, a plan critics say has been driven by politics, not science.

The committee is also recommending a bounty system to compensate hunters, but it didn’t say how much the bounty should be. There is no market for grey seal pelts.

Acting Fisheries Minister Gail Shea is under pressure from the fishing industry to do something about the stunted cod recovery in the Gulf, where there’s indirect scientific evidence suggesting hungry grey seals are to blame.

The cod in the area are on the verge of disappearing even though largescale commercial fishing has been banned there since the early 1990s.

“The committee is persuaded by the demonstration that seal predation is preventing the recovery of groundfish stocks in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence,” the committee said in its report released Tuesday. “While acknowledging the ecological risks raised by some witnesses, the committee supports the logic of the proposed experimental reduction of grey seals in this area.”

However, leading biologists and animal welfare groups have condemned the proposal, saying there’s no scientific evidence to suggest a cull would work.

Anticipating the Senate’s decision to endorse a cull, the International Fund for Animal Welfare issued a report earlier this week urging the Harper government to change course.

“Proceeding with a cull of grey seals without proper scientific evaluation and fisheries recovery plans is nothing short of irresponsible,” the group said. “Culling grey seals would be a waste of taxpayers’ money and could have international repercussions, both scientific and economic. There is much to risk losing by proceeding with a grey seal cull, and very little that we can expect to gain.”

A group of biologists at Dalhousie University issued an open letter last fall saying a cull could produce unintended consequences, including further depletion of the cod.