CHATHAM, Mass. — March 24, 2013 — In the tale of the return of the seal population to Cape Cod, the point where a positive becomes a problem depends on how you look at a colony of seals. Fisherman look at them as competition. Sharks look at them as calories. And the public looks at them in all sorts of ways, from a reason to go to a particular beach, to a reason not to.
On Saturday in the auditorium of the high school in Chatham, the various stakeholders in the seal story gathered for what was billed as the Outer Cape Seal Symposium — scientists, fishermen, and captains of seal tourism boats — to discuss what is known about the animals’ exploding population, what needs to be known, and what can or should be done about it.
At the moment, not much can be done. Bounties ended in the early 1960s, and the animals have been protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act since 1972. Any efforts to thin the population would require a change in federal law that allows for the killing of a much-adored animal.
“It would be political suicide for anybody to say, ‘We’ve got to get rid of them, we’ve got to cull them out,’ ” said Ernie Eldredge, a weir fisherman in Chatham who watches more and more seals steal more and more fish out of his traps each year. “But I don’t think we can allow the population to go unchecked. We can’t just resolve ourselves to the idea that nothing will be done about it and we’re going to have to go out of business.”
Read the full story at the Boston Globe