Seals are still the elephants in the room

The Newfoundland and Labrador fishery is still very much in the news. But, surprisingly, the growing seal population is not.

Can it be that everybody is now satisfied with the present state of the fishery?

That is doubtful given the reduced quotas for a number of species.

The Fish, Food and Allied Workers union recently announced a plan to help reduce the nuisance green crab in some southeastern bays.

It’s a somewhat new predator to our waters that is thought to be destroying young lobsters and other species. They are to be commended for such action.

Meanwhile, the seal population continues to grow, with a negative impact on many fish species, and we do nothing to control them. Why?

We certainly have been aware for some time of their impact.

In 2018 a Department of Fisheries and Oceans report stated, “Predation by gray seals was likely the greatest contributor to the increased mortality in large southern cod.”

Published reports and pictures by fisher people and others have depicted seals full of shrimp, crab and caplin, and feeding on herring.

Seals are reported to each consume between one and two metric tons of fish product annually.

Records show a correlation between decreasing commercial harvests and the increasing seal population.

An online Scottish report has cod near the top of their diet, but suggests that they will eat whatever is available. (Whatever they eat, doubtfully, it is nothing that humans wouldn’t also eat.)

A recent report noted that younger seals are smaller than normal, and that their reproductive process is delayed by one year. This could be the result of several factors, maybe.

But, if it might suggest a decline in seal food supply, then I think we should be very concerned about the state of our fish stocks.

The mere fact each seal consumes between one and two metric tons annually, and that the herd consumes more than 10 times the commercial harvest (based on 2012 statistics — probably more like 15 times currently) should be sufficient knowledge to create an urgency to deal with their numbers.

This imbalance just keeps getting worse as the annual reproduction is around 10 per cent. Surely, there must be some sort of plan in the works to deal with it before it is too late. Or, is it being left for some miraculous self correction?

Also, with such an imbalance, how can there be meaningful annual quotas set?

Just imagine if those imbalanced numbers were reversed, what it would mean to human diets, and also to the economy of many Atlantic Provinces coastal communities.

It is very difficult to understand why all stakeholders, especially the larger operators, are not aggressively battling to bring about such a change. Maybe we do need that thirdparty intervention.

On a recent CBC “Here and Now” show, a panel discussing the seal situation wondered what Iceland might do if they were faced with this problem.

Firstly, I don’t think Iceland would have allowed such a situation to develop. Secondly, if by some chance it did, I feel sure they would take whatever action was necessary to protect their fishery resources as they did in the 1960-70s with foreign trawlers fishing their waters.

We too must now take whatever action is necessary to correct this problem. No doubt, it will require immediate aggressive measures to do so.

Given talk that some Asian countries are interested in the seal product — they apparently appreciate its food value — one plan might be to do a deal with them to purchase one million seals per year until we get the population down to around two million, where it was in the 1970-80s when the harvest was all but stopped.

With reproduction, this could take eight to 10 years. By that time we could have a meaningful marketing plan in place for a continuous seal harvest.

Such a plan should assure an ongoing sustainable future fishery that includes seals in a balanced ecosystem. (We should also see more salmon in our rivers.)

Such a plan would not, in any way, be about cruelty to animals. Rather, it would be about prudent management of a natural resource. Roy Pieroway, St. John’s