Fishermen shoot 40 protected seals.

[hansp77]

Bizare and brutal story about two fisherman opening fire from their boat upon a (protected) fur seal breeding colony, south east of Melbourne Australia (off Wilsons Promentry).
I think the theory goes, that with protection the seal numbers have been increasing and are eating into the profits of local fisherman- thus they have taken matters into their own hands.
Either that or they just like to 'shoot stuff'.
On the news last night they aired a soundbite of another local old fisherman appearing to defend the slaughter- describing the pesky seals eating only the livers out of sharks caught within fishermans nets- he angrilly laments this tragic "waste of fisheries resource."

The problem for the gun-toting fisherman was that this time, there just happened to be three university research students camping on the tiny island researching the seals. apparantly they almost got shot themselves.
The students immediatly called police and a day later when the boat came back to port, they got caught.
The general consensus here seems to be absolute outrage and disgust.
They are going to be very unpopular guys it seems.
They face over $100,000 in fines and possibly 12 months in jail...



http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...2-2702,00.html


Edit to add-
the boat in question
Australian Fur Seal

from here
http://www.theage.com.au/news/nation...817061593.html

apparantly quite a common practice.

[SmithCraft64]

That is indeed a sad story. It's a shame that they can't find a way to co exist with the seals. Maybe re-examine there fishing methods in order to lower the loss of fish in other ways? There has to be away for them to adjust without killing off the seals. Just my 2bits worth. SmithCraft64

[safewalrus]

Poor fishermen indeed! good fishermen get on with the job! But the poor (as in incompetant) and the greedy kill everything else and blame everything else as well - be worth checking their catches against others from the same port, bet they are in the lower edge of the market

[longliner45]

Im with walrus on this one ,,,,,but is it also like the deer here in ohio?,,now there is more deer than at the time of the Adena Indians,because of open fields and corn crops.....now we have people being killed by deer in car and motorcycle wrecks, also 15 yrs ago the canadian goose was endangerd,,,now they are everywhere ,, should be increased limits on hunting. on a good note the great blue herring has made a teriffic come back,, back to the deer ,,,,not to sound like a jerk , but when deer over populate they die miserable deaths with desease and starvation ,that spread to other animals,,,,,,,,,,,,,surely there is a balance point between man and seals,,,,,,who had fish for dinner tonight?

[hansp77]

yeah its hard the population balance thing.
We have the same problem with Kangaroo's.
Now with all the dams and manufactured waterholes across the continent, we have record 'plague' numbers of Roo's. In the big droughts there is a lot of conflict between starving packs of Roo's travelling around searching for food and water and the farmers who are trying to keep their fodder and water for their livestock. No keeping these things off your farm, they can jump over 10 feet, and travel at 50kmh.
Professional Shooters get liscenced to shoot certain quota's, (around 7 million per year) most rotting in the field, some for pet food and some to human food.

Being the only country that eats their coat of arms- Kangaroo is a delicious meat, best cooked rare- but there are supply problems... In this state there are Roo shooters and plenty of Roo's shot, but they are not allowed to sell the animals they kill for human consumption, so it all has to be trucked in from other states. Supply cannot keep up with demand, and yet just over the hill, roo's are getting shot and left to rot...

I am not sure wether the seals are as bad as 'the deer in ohio', there certainly hasn't been much noise or focus upon the problem (as there is here about Kangaroo's). And they don't exactly present a threat to human life like deer on the roads do. The rational to kill them is more than likely purely economic and self-interested.

I guess if something like culling is deemed necessary then it has to go through the right channels. It seems this may actually be quite a common practice. Probably not just here either.
I'll keep this updated as it developes.
Hans.

[longliner45]

yes controlled culls are good!but must be monitored , seals roos and deer ,,,,they have to eat,,,,so do we......nobody should take matters into their own hands,,,,longliner

[Mychael]

My humble opinion. The human race (in general) seems to have this over inflated opinion of itself and seems to think that as we are "intelligent" (and I use that term loosely). Having invented the wheel /wars and so forth, that we somehow have more right to excist on this planet then the other living things.
There was a balance in the eco-system with animals (excluding those introduced to other countries) unlike man who pollutes till he has to bulid over his own ****/rubbish and desperately try to re-cycle what he is swiftly useing up to exhaustion.

Mychael

[Frosty]

Crabs--- great big crabs-- Russian --millions of them speading now as far as Norway and Sweden. I read in the BBc that they are scatterd over the sea bed, but they dont know what they are eating, yet they are aware they must be eating some thing, but what? Same ole story --crab boats in the harbour with fished out quotas and millions of dollars in crabs doing damage?

[timgoz]

In Newfoundland there is a controlled seal hunt. As far as I know they are shot, NOT clubbed. My friend Gilbert takes part, probably out of both tradition & economic self-interest, as he is a crab fisherman. Seal, if left unchecked, can devastate both crab and cod. With the cod they do eat out only the liver and leave the rest.

I do think the whole animal should be put to proper use ,and not just the pelt utilized. The Inuit farther up in Labrador make use of all. Seals, as far as I could see in the 2 seasons I was there (NFLD & Labrador) are very plentiful.

Now that half the forum members hate me I bid you all adieu.

Take care.

TGoz

[Mychael]

So I must ask. How then are there any Crab or Cod at all? If as you say the seals devastate them both.? Seals were around in numbers long before humans and if the fishermans arguement was accepted then there would allready be no Crab Or Cod as the seals would have eaten them long ago.
It's a known fact that ocean produce(seafood) numbers are falling only after human population became huge and there was the technology for large scale fishing.

Mychael

[timgoz]

Your assumption that seals were around long before humans is more of a religous (to me) arguement. This is not the place for that never ending debate.

I should have been more specific as to the "devastation" I spoke of. Once crab are in the pots, or cod on the hook, the seals take their toll.

Yes, large scale commercial fishing, with its brutal efficiency, factory ships, modern electronics, ect.. has been probably the primary cause of world-wide fish stock declines. It is not so much the smaller coastal fishing operations as the large nationalized fishing flleets off shore doing much of the damage.

We must have reach a balance, as close as our understanding allows. Good stewardship of all the worlds resources is a noble goal. Use, but do not abuse.

TGoz

[Mychael]

I could also be more specific in terms of "Long time" (don't have a religous bone in my body). However lets say 300/400 odd years. Pretty much any given place of geography I'm sure there were seals/sharks etc back then, but I'm sure nobody could argue that also less population, and yet, when people seriously started fishing there were plenty of things to catch.So my reasoning goes that the eco-system was by and large dynamically stable until humans got greedy/technologically advanced and try to blame every other thing for their own mis management of resources.

Mychael

[timgoz]

True. If we would apply more thought and energy to devising more efficient ways to do things, instead of efficient ways to take them, we would have a more balanced & sustainable world.

Take care.

TGoz

[Frosty]

Well if you can find a way of procesing the flesh of the crabs , the riendeer, the seals and freeze it up and transport it to Africa to feed starving people (or any body) without it costing a fortune by paying off ship owners ,agents, corrupt government officials etc --Great. Thats what got Bob Geldoff all pissed off about.
Europe has or used to have butter mountains, milk lakes, vast quantities of farm produce stored and not allowed to be put on the market to keep the cost high enough to keep the farmer happy and so the Government did not have to pay then subsidies-- we had to,!! keeping ficticious prices.
The Russsians would come and buy this lot off us,-- laughing.

We live in a crazy world. But thats the way it has to be.

[ron17571]

Ive seen pictures of seals all piled up on ships decks,looked preety nasty and ive read storys over the years of seals eating hooked fish just as they got to the boat.I say cull them but make good use of the whole seal.Same for deer and geese.