NANTUCKET, Mass. — Sept 2, 2012 — Bobby DeCosta remembers the days on the island when killing a seal and taking its nose earned you a $5 bounty from the state. It was the early 1960s, and spotting a seal on the island was rare. DeCosta's father would shoot them if they strayed onto the beach, or popped their heads up above the water offshore.
"If they saw five seals all winter, it was a big deal," said DeCosta, a charter boat captain and selectman.
Today things are much different. DeCosta and his charter boat Albacore are routinely stalked by a seal he calls "Mossy Back." The old bull, which DeCosta regularly identifies by the green moss growing on its back, has learned to follow the charter boat out into open water, and steal fish from the lines of his customers.
From Muskeget to Great Point, and all around the Cape and Islands region, a great resurgence of gray seals is playing out, and the bull seal that follows DeCosta's boat is just one of the symptoms of the seals' comeback.
The once-threatened species, under the protection of federal regulations since 1972, has been replenished by the thousands, a cause for celebration among environmentalists and scientists, but drawing the ire of anglers and others concerned about the impact of the marine mammals on fishing, tourism and other marine and animal species. The return of the seals has also brought their predators to the region, as great white sharks have been spotted and tagged repeatedly off the Cape, and blamed for an attack on a swimmer in Truro.
"I think it's clearly over-population," DeCosta said. "You can't leave one species unchecked."
The National Marine Fisheries Service estimates the New England gray seal population has nearly tripled since 1999, when a stock assessment gauged that the species numbered 5,611 in the region. By 2011, the population estimate had jumped to 15,756 seals, according to a draft stock assessment by the NMFS. The impact of such a rapid increase has been acutely felt by Nantucket anglers.
Read the full article at the Cape Cod Times