Fishermen get no relief on seal issue

DINGLE fishermen see no hope of ever being able to fish around the Blaskets because anything they catch there is snatched from their nets by the growing colony of protected seals that inhabits the islands.

Fishermen told The Kerryman that they have attempted to distract the seals with decoys and to frighten them away using with electronic devices but nothing has worked and the seals continue to raid most or all of the fish they net within five miles of the Blaskets. Meanwhile, fishermen’s demands for a seal cull are rejected out of hand by the authorities responsible for maintaining the Blasket Islands Special Area of Conservation (SAC).

Dingle fishermen outlined their concerns to marine biology experts and representatives of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) at a meeting held in Killarney last week, but they came away dissatisfied. “As far as I was concerned they tried to blow us off… I don’t think they wanted to listen to what we had to say,” said Liam Flannery, who was one of the fishermen at the meeting.

Liam said that while the experts accepted that seals take fish from nets, they didn’t seem to believe that Blasket seals clean out nets completely, as claimed by the fishermen. “If we were fishing within five miles of the Blaskets we would be lucky to get one haul, but once the seals find you everything in the net will be eaten,” Liam said.

He added that NPWS representatives suggested seals are wrongly blamed by fishermen and that spurdog [a type of dogfish] would also be responsible for damaging fish caught in nets. “That happens around Brandon, but not around the Blaskets,” Liam said. “Besides, we know what a seal bite looks like.”

Liam said fishermen have “tried everything” to avoid seals, including shooting decoy nets and deploying acoustic deterrents which mimic the sound of killer whales, but without success.

“We used to be able to distract them with decoy nets three or four years ago, but that doesn’t work now… We’ve tried acoustic deterrents but they copped on to what we were at after about two hours… They’re very clever; some have even worked out how to open lobster pots and take out the bait,” Liam said.

“The NPWS treat them [seals] like they’re stupid. But they’re very clever – you can’t pull the wool over their eyes,” he added.

Fishermen at the meeting in Killarney asked the NPWS what they considered to be a sustainable number of seals on the Blaskets. According to Liam, the NPWS response was that they couldn’t say – their sole objective is to sustain, monitor and protect the seals.

The Kerryman put the same question to the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, which controls the NPWS. A department spokesperson said that: “There is currently insufficient knowledge of the ecology and life history of grey seals at the Blasket Islands for the Department to answer the question of how many seals the Blasket Islands can sustain.”

The Blasket islands seal colony has been the subject of ongoing research since at least 2004, and the department spokesperson was able to say that, based on surveys conducted in 2011, the breeding population of grey seals in the Blasket Islands Special Area of Conservation was estimated at 1,099-1,413 seals of all ages. According to the department, more recent data indicates the population “may now number around 1,600 animals”.

Fishermen think the actual number is considerably higher, but they have no research to back up their claims.

In relation to the meeting held last week in Killarney the spokesperson said the “NPWS committed to further investigate solutions for deterring seal interactions with static fishing gears and to continue their collaboration with the Marine Institute and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to investigate such problems and their solutions in partnership with the fishing industry”.

Liam Flannery wonders if those solutions will come soon enough. He said that in previous times fishermen culled seals every few years and by doing so maintained their livelihoods. However, culling is no longer possible and between seals, quotas and restrictions, fishermen now look to an uncertain future.

Since last July, Liam and his fellow fishermen have been looking for a meeting with Agriculture and Marine Minister Michael Creed to discuss their concerns. They have failed to get a response.

“You could throw your hat at it and say ‘I give up’, but I love fishing, it’s in my blood, it’s what we do, so we have to keep kicking at the door,” Liam said.