Thank you.
This past spring, I was fishing for groundfish 100 kilometres west of Yarmouth, in the Bay of Fundy, in 600 feet of water. I set my nets in the night, and when I started to haul them back the next morning, most of the fish in the nets had the stomachs torn out of them and the liver and gonads gone. The seals target the part of the fish that is the highest in protein. The fish were ruined, and the seals had also torn holes into my nets when they tore out other fish. I had to give up fishing and come home. I saw a couple of seals around the boat only for a short time, because they mostly stay underwater. I don't know how many were there, but I had never seen anything this bad before for seals in this area. This is happening all over Nova Scotia.
Several years ago, you hardly ever saw a grey seal in the western part of Nova Scotia, but they have moved in. They are more like an invasive species in these new areas into which they have moved, because they weren't here years ago. They are disrupting the whole ecosystem. What few natural predators they did have years back, like the shark, are mostly gone, so there is nothing to keep their numbers in balance.
These animals grow very large. They are huge animals with big appetites. They aren't the small, little seals that some groups advertise on TV. They are vicious animals.
As lobster fishermen along the south shore, when we are hauling our lobster traps, we find the seals are following our boats. When we put back small lobsters, the seals are diving down and eating them. So much for conservation of the little lobsters. This is going on all over Nova Scotia, but it just isn't restricted to Nova Scotia anymore. I've been talking to fisher friends of mine in the U.S., and they are starting to see the same thing, because the grey seals are now moving into their area.
When do we finally do something to bring these numbers of seals to a more historic level before it is too late for our fisheries? Back in the 1960s—and these are DFO records, not mine—there was an estimate at that time of 10,000 grey seals, mostly in the eastern part of Nova Scotia, and none in the western part. From 1976 to 1983, there was a bounty on grey seals, with x number of seals taken every year for the bounty. From 1967 to 1983, they had a cull. Actually, DFO would go out to different islands with the fishermen and actually do a cull. Starting in 1967, when there were only 10,000 animals in the early sixties, DFO thought these animals were detrimental to the fishery, and they started reducing their numbers with these programs. What do you think is going on now when these numbers are now over 300,000 animals and they are showing up in areas where they never were before? Unfortunately, the program was stopped in 1983, I guess due to pressure by people who don't know the real facts.
In other countries like Scotland, where there are wilderness protected areas such as the ones we have, areas that are set up to protect the flora and fauna of sensitive species, grey seals actually move into these areas and upset the whole ecosystem. The very flora and fauna that were being protected were being destroyed by the grey seals. They actually had to implement a cull in these countries to chase the seals off these islands.
This is just a small explanation of what is actually going on. I didn't mention the seal worm that comes from the grey seals and affects our fish, weakens them, and may eventually kill them. We need to do something now to bring the numbers of grey seals to a more historic level before it is too late for our fishery.
I did it in five minutes. Thank you.