I’ve watched seals scarfing down whole keepers and grab a big fish by the shoulder and rip off a fillet. Probably stolen fish or post release casualties. I think they estimate the north west Atlantic population of gray seals at over 400 thousand- (US, Canada, Greenland). The MMPA worked well and there is very little chance of ever changing it. Most of the general public only think of the cute and cuddly baby harbor and harp seals when they think of seals and guys clubbing them to death. Canada has a limited cull in some areas and can’t even convince their people to expand the hunt - and they have 10-20 times as many seals then us. There is a small push up there to utilize the resource up there but without the US market opening up for them it just won’t happen. It is considered the reason for the cod stock not rebounding in Canada and cods been essentially been closed up there fore 30 years. So as far as stripers go we need to have a healthy and growing stock to sustain the gray seals growing population. Maybe a nice seal plague would develop but that’s about the only chance of knocking down their numbers Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device
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