I have read the Senate report The Sustainable Management of Grey Seal Populations: A path toward the recovery of cod and other groundfish stocks. The senators show a deficit of logical thinking. Perhaps most fundamentally, the cull they are supporting is not an "experiment" in any scientific sense of the term, and will tell us virtually nothing about the workings of the ecosystem.
I am a scientist who has studied marine mammals off eastern Canada for the past 35 years. The concept of a seal cull to improve Maritime groundfish stocks is not scientifically defensible. It is simply not known whether seals have a positive or negative effect on groundfish populations. A large cull of grey seals in the Maritimes will not help our understanding.
The world´s largest population of grey seals breeds on Sable Island on the eastern Scotian Shelf. Current surveys show that while seal populations on Sable Island are still increasing somewhat, so also now are the groundfish populations. These trends may or may not be related but clearly there is no case whatsoever for a seal cull on Sable Island. All diet studies to date have concluded that cod comprise a very minor component of grey seal diets on the Scotian Shelf.
In the southern Gulf of St Lawrence, groundfish stocks are in worse shape and have declined while seal populations have increased. This does not mean that seals caused the groundfish decline. There are many other species in this ecosystem that consume cod (the greatest of which are cod themselves and other fish), and many other factors affecting ecosystem changes.
For instance, there is a substantial biomass of small fish-eating whales and dolphins in the southern Gulf of St Lawrence, and cod-eating sperm whales in the Cabot Strait. Should they be culled too for this experiment? Actually, "experiment" is the wrong word, because there is no replication and no control. If the seals were removed and the groundfish increased, or the groundfish decreased, it would tell us nothing much at all about the relationship between the species. What is the "scientific plan" to determine what the cause and effects would be?
Grey seals were part of the ecosystem in these waters before humans set eyes on them, and coexisted with very large groundfish populations until mechanized fisheries appeared, so, in effect the "experiment" has already been done, and the conclusion is: groundfish and seals can coexist in large numbers, when not over-exploited by fisheries.
We have a woeful history of manipulating ecosystems. There is sometimes a case for trying to remove non-native species with large impacts, but these attempts often backfire. Removing native species is scientifically indefensible, and, from my perspective, morally wrong.
WARNING: GRAPHIC
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Canadian Seal Hunt
Seal hunters use a hakapik, a club used for killing seals, to kill a seal near their boat in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence March 31, 2008 near Charlottetown, Canada. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Canadian Seal Hunt
Seal hunters skin harp seals on an ice floe March 30, 2001 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Newsmakers)
Canadian Seal Hunt
The bodies of harp seals, roughly twenty days old, lie on an ice floe March 27, 2001 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Newsmakers)
Canadian Seal Hunt
The carcass of a harp seal, roughly twenty days old, lies on an ice floe March 30, 2001 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Newsmakers)
Canadian Seal Hunt
The carcass of a harp seal, roughly twenty days old, lies on an ice floe March 30, 2001 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Newsmakers)
Canadian Seal Hunt
The carcass of a harp seal, roughly twenty days old, lies on an ice floe March 30, 2001 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Newsmakers)
Canadian Seal Hunt
Seal hunters carry dead seals in their boat in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence March 31, 2008 near Charlottetown, Canada. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Canadian Seal Hunt
A policeman tries to remove female animal-rights activist Ashley Fruno (R), covered with a body-painting to look like the Canadian flag, during her one-woman anti-sealing protest by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) outside the Canadian embassy in Tokyo on March 24, 2010. (TORU YAMANAKA/AFP/Getty Images)
Canadian Seal Hunt
Animal rights activists, Sir Paul McCartney(R) and then-wife Heather Mills McCartney get up close to a seal pup during a venture onto the ice floes of the Gulf of St-Lawrence before the start of the 2006 seal hunting season in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. (DAVID BOILY/AFP/Getty Images)
Canadian Seal Hunt
Members of the organization for the defense of animals AnimalNaturalis protest naked and painted as bloody seals to protest the seal hunt in Canada on March 15, 2010. (Getty)
Canadian Seal Hunt
Members of the organization for the defense of animals AnimalNaturalis protest naked and painted as bloody seals to protest against the seal hunt in Canada on March 15, 2010. (Getty)
Canadian Seal Hunt
Inuit hunter Pitseolak Alainga (L) explains how the Inuit traditionally hunt seal to Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty outside the Nunavut Legislature in Iqaluit, Canada, February 6, 2010. (GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images)
Canadian Seal Hunt
An animal-rights activist holds a baseball bat as he stands next to a person wearing a seal costume during a protest against the killing of seals in Canada on March 29, 2010 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Miguel Villagran/Getty Images)
Canadian Seal Hunt
An animal-rights activist wears a mask depicting the face of a seal during a protest against the killing of seals in Canada on March 29, 2010 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Miguel Villagran/Getty Images)
Canadian Seal Hunt
People protest in front of the Canadian Consulates, on March 25, 2009 in Nice, south eastern France, to protest against the seal hunt in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in Canada. (VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)
Canadian Seal Hunt
Having recently returned from a trip out to the ice floes to collect seal heart valves for scientific research, local butcher and seal hunter, Rejean Vigneau (R) and AN employee (L) prepare seal meat in his meat shop on March 25, 2008 in the Magdalen Islands of Quebec, Canada. (DAVID BOILY/AFP/Getty Images)
Canadian Seal Hunt
The Grim Reaper clubs a mock seal to death during a protest by the animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animlas) in Hong Kong, 21 April 2006. (MIKE CLARKE/AFP/Getty Images)
The world is changing and so are our values. It is necessary to consider these in our decisions about how we manage wildlife.
It's worth remembering that not one internationally respected marine mammal or fisheries scientist who appeared before the Senate supported the notion of a grey seal cull as a means to facilitate the recovery of cod. Their advise was ignored. Why? Because the recommended grey seal cull isn't about protecting cod, it's about protecting politicians.
It is ludicrous for a scientist to expect laboratory standards for establishing
causation in a dynamic ecosystem. The point of the seal cull is very simple.
Some seals eat a lot of cod, some seals do not. On average, seal predation
has a direct effect and that effect is to reduce the number of adult, breeding cod.
The suggestion that there are indirect effects of reducing seal abundance
that would somehow also reduce cod abundance is possible but needs a mechanistic
explanation of how this could and should occur.
Let the cull occur, calculate how many cod were not eaten and the associated reduction in total mortality. And then measure the success of the cull with the DFO survey data and the cod stock assessment. This is an adaptive approach to ecosystem managment. See if the approach works, and verify that it does.
Last, it is a hungry and resource-driven world. If there is money to be made on seal skins, then the cost of not culling needs to be measured against the benefits to society of culling. Enough said.
Pointing out that it is wrong to call something an 'experiment' when it lacks the very basic elements necessary for a scientific experiment is plain common sense.
Political advocacy is what the Senate fisheries committee has been engaged in from the very beginning. They have consistently ignored experts and scientists, instead adopting policies that threaten the marine ecosystem including cod populations in order to win political points with those who will benefit financially from a cull and who refuse to acknowledge that the marine ecosystem is complex and not fully understood.
We are not able to predict what the result of killing one species will have on others and the broader ecosystem. That is the fundamental point that has been lost by the politicians and the industry lobbyists that they are listening to.
At a time when many are struggling economically it is nothing less than an insult to suggest that tens of millions of dollars should be wasted on a cull with no scientifically established benefits that will harm the marine ecosystem, inflict untold cruelty and further tarnish our international reputation.
Simply asserting that the idea of a cull is unscientific is advocating a policy position in the absence of scientific information. If the science is not informative on this matter, then scientists should state that they do not know. For myself, the reasoning of O'Boyle and Sinclair is convincing and increasing seal stocks have increased natural mortality rates on cod stocks. Doing nothing and hoping something good will happen is not an adaptive management approach.
or a pig.
I'd rather trust Drs Sinclair and O'Boyle who have also studied seals for decades, but don't jump on any occasion they have to support IFAW's opinion on the issue.
Their study clearly shows we need to manage the booming grey seal populations. That's not a surprise as we need to manage all wildlife species.
Drs Sinclair and O'Boyle let their solid study speak for itself. Definitely a more appropriate behavior for real scientists.
And if you think "Nature will balanced itself", why bother given quotas and moratorium to fishermen then? That theory just doesn't make sense and we don't live in Disneyland.
What we do know is that current seal populations can and have coexisted with large and healthy cod and ground fish populations - so long as we don't fish such populations into commercial extinction.
Your characterization of the issues suggests a lack of familiarity with the study that you cite and your attempt to mischaracterize the view most widely held by marine scientists on this issue discredits your assertions.
I'm very familiar with the study and even talked with Dr Sinclair and Dr O'Boyle many times. I also talked with Dr Mike Hammill, Dr Gary Stenson and Dr Doug Swain which together, represents the best and most knowledgeable body of scientists on the seal issue around.
There is no scientific evidence that grey seal population was ever as high in history. Ever.
High populations of harp seal coexisted with large fish stocks, yes, but when Canada's population was 200 000. We're now 36 millions. You might want to see the Canadian governement reducing his population to half a million, but I don't think it'll be a very popular option.
So what do we do?
Wait and hope it corrects itself.
That could take several lifetimes.
And it may never happen.
The Norweigans take between 10 and 15 thousand seals every year in a commercial and recreational hunt.
They hunt seal in Iceland as well .
Both these countries are doing a better job of managing their wild fish stocks than we are.
Both these countries have established fisherman schools.
The first being in Norway back in 1939.
Whereas we in Canada allow the trade to be self disciplined but mandated to follow instruction from deeply entrenched bureaucracys.
An odd way to draft policy