No place in our waters

Topic of the week: managing our coast

FROM the early 1980s I have lobbied various Westminster and more recently the Scottish Government in a bid to make the killing of seals by salmon farmers illegal in Scotland (End the slaughter of seals in Scotland now, News, September 4). Salmon farmers should be required to install and properly maintain predator exclusion nets to humanely stop seals getting close to the salmon cages. An alternative is to farm salmon in on-shore seawater tanks.

These systems are expensive and politicians, civil servants and even RSPCA Freedom Foods refused to force salmon farmers to invest the money required to make Scottish-farmed salmon seal-friendly.

Instead, the Scottish Government gives salmon farmers licences to shoot seals then leaves shooters to police themselves using an honesty box system to report numbers shot.

Since 2011, I have been asking the US government to use existing legislation to ban the import of salmon produced on farms where seals are deliberately killed. I was pleasantly surprised to read in the Sunday Herald that this approach had been successful.

The US government specifically mentions my correspondence as having influenced their decision to implement the ban which comes into force on January 1, 2022. Perhaps now the Scottish Government will make it compulsory for salmon farmers to use predator exclusion nets instead of giving them licences to kill seals? It is ludicrous that it has required a foreign government to protect seals in Scottish waters.