Seal Populations

[Sweetwater]

I strongly agree with Karl! Don't take any hasty actions on the beaches. They're just looking for a reason to shut us out. But we can lobby the powers that be to understand and take into account how the seals are impacting the coastal areas and fisheries.

There is a huge economic toll to be paid in those coastal areas if the seals drive away tourists (because they can't swim in the ocean) and fishermen.

However, just like I fear that wildlife management will not look at how the raccoons, skunks, crows, fox, and coyotes are devestating the piping plovers attempt to recover; they will refuse to see how the seals are negatively impacting the area, and will choose to blame humans for every problem they see.

[Flaptail]

Having attended a few meetings this past spring with the Monomoy Island National Wildlife Refuge people on thier current management plan review, it came to light that;

A. The NMFS, who has jurisdiction over the seal population, and who is governed by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, do not, nor have they ever, really known what the historical population of seals along the outer Cape, Monomoy etc., was. They will, under condition of annymomity tell you they belive there are way to many.

B. It will take a study to tell what is and what isn't a viable population that can interact with the other marine speceis and there affects on those other species. It will take 5 to 7 years to conduct that study.

C. Then it will take hearings both public and privately in the hallowed halls of the federal government to reach a decision on a management plan.

D. The the Sierra Club, The International Coalition for Animal Welfare and P.E.T.A. and a host of other "eco-welfare" groups will mount there well funded, though mis-guided law suits against any such management plan if it in any way, shape or form includes "thinning the herd" through biological or other means (read: guns). This adds another five to six years to the mix.

E. A settlement with these organizations is reached and no one wins.

Meanwhile, the bait stays offshore, the bass stay offshore, there are no Window Pane Flounder, Cod, Sea Bass, Blackback Flounder, Pollock, Crabs, etc., left inshore for them to feed on or us to catch.
A blight hits the seals because there is not enough sustenance to support 10,000 seals and they migrate to inside of Cape Cod Bay in summer, Sandy Neck, the beaches of Brewster, Orleans, Wellfleet, Truro, P-town, Sandwich, Yarmouth and Dennis in the bay and finally into the canal eating all the bait, lobsters, crabs and making it unsafe for vessels to transit the canal. The Herring stocks which are almost wiped out had just started to rebound, we cannot take them yet but the seals will find them and have a field day.

I'm depressed.

[Nebe]

[gone fishin]

Well put Flaptail !!

[Diggin Jiggin]

What we need is something that can control the birth rate, maybe something that can be put in some type of bait/food that can be distributed on momomoy /muskeget to make a percenatge of them sterile. I know they distribute a rabies vacine for racoons thru a food program.

No ones ever going to let a hunt happen, but if there was a way to limit the numbers/ control the population thru a non violent means I think people would go along with it.