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[MrGrey1]

Saving Salmon Stocks.
I just watch a news clip on channel 26 CBC News. Newly created National Park in Nova Scotia plans to temporally close this park and allow kill of 100.000 seals with rifles equipped with silencers. These guns will be imported from US so they do not frighten other seals with noise. After this is completed annual kill of thousands of seals will continue for several years. Seals will be then shot with bullets containing medicine for sterilization to females. Not sure if this video clip is posted yet, but here is a previous or similar link:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/05/27/ns-grey-seals-sable-island.html

How about our seals in the straights or in the mouth of the mighty Fraser river? I've seen a few big colonies of them ther too. They kill many salmon going up to river as well..? Any thouts on this?
MrGrey1

[Bavarian Raven]

yet i've read other research )sorry i dont have the papers with me atm) that state seal damage to fish stocks is over-rated and used as an escape goat for over fishing and the such...

[arimaBOATER]

I'm surely no expert but if we have 1 million seals along the BC coast & even if they ate 1 salmon per week (as seal eat a variety of things I assume) well the math then would be minus 1 million salmon weekly.
(remember someone said the est. are aprox. 700,000 seals in BC. thus 700,00 salmon gone wkly. ---no small amount.)

In SK the gov. put a bounty on coyotes ($20 per) & so far over 70,000 have been killed. Over-populated.
(Mind ya possibly some hunters are killing coyotes in Manitoba & Alberta then bringing them into SK to collect the $20.  Give them to their Sk. relative.)

I hate to see anything killed so I definately will not be the one doing it SHOULD ONE DAY there is a seal kill.
But don't the Orcas & other whales also need seals as part of their diet ??   Food chain.

[Rodney]

This is a good opportunity to put up the list of evil species that we need to selectively cull.

Humbolt squid
Salmon shark
Killer whale
Harbour seal
Sea lion
Sea otter
Sea gull
Bald eagle
Golden eagle
Black bear
Grizzly bear
River otter
Bull trout
Cutthroat trout
Rainbow trout
Northern pikeminnow
Sculpin
Lingcod
Rockfish
Pacific cod
Chub Mackerel
Jelly fish
Tuna
Marlin

Do your part, otherwise there'll be no salmon left soon. How dare these creatures threaten our beloved salmon.

[DavidD]

Rodney - You forgot one... Homo Sapiens 

[kingpin]

This is a good opportunity to put up the list of evil species that we need to selectively cull.

Humbolt squid
Salmon shark
Killer whale
Harbour seal
Sea lion
Sea otter
Sea gull
Bald eagle
Golden eagle
Black bear
Grizzly bear
River otter
Bull trout
Cutthroat trout
Rainbow trout
Northern pikeminnow
Sculpin
Lingcod
Rockfish
Pacific cod
Chub Mackerel
Jelly fish
Tuna
Marlin

Do your part, otherwise there'll be no salmon left soon. How dare these creatures threaten our beloved salmon.

2 blacks and a grizz down last weekend, were doing our part are you? 

[speycaster]

Homo sapiens is the one that should be culled, 500,000 a month would be a good start.

[rhino]

If the seals were always the culprits then salmon should already be extinct.

to kill off one species so we can have more of another, super intelligent!! Great idea!
 

[huntwriter]

Saving Salmon Stocks.
I just watch a news clip on channel 26 CBC News. Newly created National Park in Nova Scotia plans to temporally close this park and allow kill of 100.000 seals with rifles equipped with silencers. These guns will be imported from US so they do not frighten other seals with noise. After this is completed annual kill of thousands of seals will continue for several years. Seals will be then shot with bullets containing medicine for sterilization to females. Not sure if this video clip is posted yet, but here is a previous or similar link:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/05/27/ns-grey-seals-sable-island.html

How about our seals in the straights or in the mouth of the mighty Fraser river? I've seen a few big colonies of them ther too. They kill many salmon going up to river as well..? Any thouts on this?
MrGrey1

No matter where seals live in Canada we need to kill a lot more then we do. Seals are hopelessly overpopulated, but try to make that clear to the animal rights and eco terrorists. They effectively managed to bully the European Union in boycotting Canada products that contain seal. I hope our government is not bowing down to that crap and if they have to order seals be culled and left to rot if it has to be.

[huntwriter]

If the seals were always the culprits then salmon should already be extinct.

to kill off one species so we can have more of another, super intelligent!! Great idea!
 

It's not about "killing off" anything. It's about wildlife management and making sure their is a balance. As it stands with the seals they have outgrown the carrying capacity of their habitat and need to be culled.

[Nutterbug]

It's not about "killing off" anything. It's about wildlife management and making sure their is a balance. As it stands with the seals they have outgrown the carrying capacity of their habitat and need to be culled.

It's humans that threw it out of balance.

I can only consider killing seals justified if we were to eat their meat.  Adopt the Eskimos' diet and live off the land.  Don't let any of it go to waste.  (Let's not be so picky about our food, while relying almost entirely on inhumanely factory farmed meats.)

And no killing the young or mothers with young.  I believe that goes against the hunters' code.

[rides bike to work]

Huntwriter is totally right most of Canada's wild life was killed off in the early 1900's and has since been managed by man. Deer, bear ,sheep, fish,and seals have been relocated, bred ,and selectively harvested the seal is one that has been protected over the years and any culling would just be a wildlife management issue not ethical.

[huntwriter]

It's humans that threw it out of balance.

I can only consider killing seals justified if we were to eat their meat.  Adopt the Eskimos' diet and live off the land.  Don't let any of it go to waste.  (Let's not be so picky about our food, while relying almost entirely on inhumanely factory farmed meats.)

There are times when wildlife has to be drastically managed regardless if the meat is used or not. Such drastic management can be carried out by hunters or hired sharp shooters but it has to be done one way or another should a healthy balance be maintained.

And no killing the young or mothers with young.  I believe that goes against the hunters' code.

Ethics are a man made standards and always have been subject to interpretation. In wildlife management things are a little different in that ethics and warm-fuzzy feelings are of little value. If the management plan is to keep a given game population stable or let it grow then males are targeted. If on the other hand the management plan is to reduce a population that has outgrown the carrying capacity then females and young need to be culled. Just killing males has not much of an impact on the population numbers. Males can and do mate with many females. To reduce a population females need to be culled and that sometimes involves killing young animals too. It's like in Region 3 where we will have a doe season to lower the whitetail deer population. in some American states where deer are hopelessly overpopulated we have instituted fawn season too to reduce the deer population fast back to carrying capacity.

[marmot]

Huntwriter you are quick to label people eco-terrorists or animal rights activists for having views that differ from your own.

I have no problem advocating culling if it is necessary to "save" salmon stocks... however, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of killing a pile of seals just because they are "the competition" and then selling it under the "wildlife management" euphamism.

[DionJL]

I'd be wondering a few things before I'd back a cull.

First, what were the traditional populations of seals/sea lions before humans began to harvest them or their food? Were there more of them back then than now, or less? Only if less then could you move on to other factors like whether the large population of seals is just a natural population fluctuation or if it is actually abnormally high because of humans. Will it eventually correct itself naturally?

Calling for a cull based on an opinion or first hand (localized) experiences is a nearsighted way of thinking (remember wolves in Yellowstone park). All most of you know for fact is that seals eat salmon. You don't have any population estimates of your own, any knowledge of the carrying capacity to compare it to, you don't have historic populations, you don't know that actual correlation between seal population and salmon population. Basically there are a lot of unknowns that need to become knowns before you can start taking drastic measures like a cull.