Sir, - Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, 27th) declares that seal populations are "growing unnaturally large all over the world" when, unfortunately, the opposite is true.
Many seal populations are in serious decline. Often those that seem to be booming are, in fact, in the process of recovering from massive culls of the past centuries. The natural population levels of most seals, before human intervention, were many, many times higher than today.
As regards the benefits of a cull to the fishing industry, it has not yet been shown that a general cull would result in any increase in yield to the fishermen in affected areas. The Canadian government (proponents of seal culling for commercial purposes) could not find any evidence that culling benefited the fishing yield to any great extent. The present poor state of fish stocks are the result of over-fishing by man and has little to do with seal population levels, past, present or future.
Of course seals do represent a problem to some fixed-gear fisheries and fishermen in the affected areas can suffer great loss of catch due to seals at the nets. Evidence suggests that such behaviour by seals is learned and may be due to particular rogue seals or groups of seals. The best way to deal with this problem is either to development an acoustic deterrent or to shoot seals at the nets. This is already allowed for under the Wildlife Act and fishermen can apply for a licence to shoot problem animals.
We are left to question why fishermen are calling for a cull. One suspects that frustration has much to do with it, and revenge. A cull has the appearance of dealing with the problem, whether fish stocks benefit or not. If culling were proven to benefit fish stocks, it would be a viable management option but wildlife management should never be about revenge. Those who do not understand the issues would do better to remain silent than to stir up unnecessary and unhelpful hostilities. - Yours, etc.,
Dave Wall, (Wildlife Biologist), Terenure, Dublin 12.