DEAD SEAL ON THE WHITE STRAND

(Click on the title for a link to the Irish Seal Sanctuary)

A dead seal was found washed up on the White Strand beach in Buncrana last Thursday. The animal was first spotted near the pier earlier in the week, still alive and in obvious distress from an injury that looked like a gunshot wound. Seals are a protected species under European law and shooting the animals can only be undertaken with a licence issued by the Department of the Environment (section 4). According to a spokesperson for the DOE, none have been granted in Inishowen or the surrounding peninsulas this year.

There are two types of seal that live in the sea around Inishowen, the Atlantic Grey seal and the Common, or Harbour seal, as it is also known. Many see seals as an attraction to the coastline and their antics are often though to be endearing, however they are not universally welcomed.

UNWELCOME GUESTS
As a seals’ main diet is fish they have been found hanging around salmon farms. This can cause stress and subsequent loss of condition to the fish stock, however the more immediate and damaging problem is when a seal discovers that it can break into a salmon cage and gorge itself. The remaining fish escape to cause their own problems breeding with the wild populations of salmon, not to mention the financial loss of the fish themselves. Fish farmers are well aware of the damage a “rogue” seal can cause to their financial welfare. Seals can also hit the individual fisherman and ruin whole catches before they are brought ashore. As the seas get warmer more seals arrive around the Irish coast.

So, how can this problem be tackled?

There are devices on the market that have been designed to scare away seals. These products either use the hunting calls of species such as Killer Whales or else high frequency sounds to discourage seals from hanging around fish farms. These do work, but only for a limited time because the seals do become habituated to the noises, after which they will ignore them. When a single seal has found an easy food source, and stays around to exploit it, another way out that has been tried is to remove the individual seal from the area. The idea is that if this seal is removed the problem goes (although a new seal may take it’s place). The easiest way and unfortunately, the commonest way to remove the ‘problem’ is to shoot the seal. Shooting can be very effective, not only as it rids the area of a persistent “rogue”, but it may then deter other seals from visiting the area. In other instances around Ireland there have allegedly been reports that fish have had packets of strychnine sewn into them and the bodies then hung in the nets to poison the seals.

The other solution is to try to catch the seal and relocate it. This is not an easy task, but it works if the seal is moved far enough away from the original site. Some seals migrate so they have the ability to return “home” if they know where it is. In one case (as reported by the Seal Sanctuary) a seal was caught and released over forty miles away from its home, only to reappear a short time later! Catching seals is not an easy job though. What has happened in the past with this type of expensive, drawn out act is that eventually public interest dies down and the seal looses its novelty value and the intruder mysteriously “disappears”. Although it is illegal to shoot a seal, the people responsible for the acts are very rarely caught and prosecuted.

SEAL COUNT
The National Parks and Wildlife board in connection with the University of Cork will be attempting to count the number of Atlantic Grey seals around the Irish coastline in August and September of this year. The Common seal was counted in 2003 by helicopters using thermal imaging and their numbers were said to total around 3000. The Grey seal generally moves around more but at this time of year they are breeding so tend to stay in one place. Their numbers are estimated to be in the region of 4000. A precise count though will give the Department of the Environment a clear indication of where the population of the seals is highest and whether it is causing any problems for the livelihoods of people involved in the fishing industry. The seal rookeries around our coastline are on the rocks that appear in low tide and the population will tend to reduce in numbers as the grey seal split its time between here, Scotland and Wales. Unfortunately for them, their food source puts them in competition with us for the rich fish supplies around the coastline. For tourists pulling into Buncrana on the ferry and seeing a distressed dying seal that has been shot, isn’t much of a welcome. A spokesperson for the DOE says that the government is aware of the situation and they are trying to find an effective, humane and environmentally sensitive solution to this problem. In the meantime the Irish seal sanctuary based in Garristown Co Dublin are coming up with nets and traps to humanely move offending animals and relocate them in areas that are not fished. This organization runs on donations and can be contacted on 01 835 4370 or www.irishsealsanctuary.ie. If you have any information about the seal please contact the National Parks and Wildlife officer Emmett Johnston on 074 9322628

Environmental.