I don't think we should be looking at a cull where any animal is senselessly slaughtered and left for no purpose. With the seal population, I wouldn't want to be anything, including myself, swimming by if the animal was hungry and expect not to get a swat taken at me. Obviously, when you have hundreds and thousands of things out there, they have to eat something. Maybe salmon or trout are not their primary sources of food, but if it's the only source of food, I suspect they'll munch down here and there.
You have to harvest based on abundance. There is a tremendous opportunity to help put this ecosystem back into balance and to restore it to equilibrium. Seals can be harvested. The products can be sold. It's a tremendous economic benefit that could be had here for Atlantic Canada in not trying to eliminate seals, but just bringing their numbers down to a manageable population. It's the same with striped bass. If we were to increase our allocations on striped bass right now, then it would greatly increase the recreational fishery for them. There would be economic benefits with the populations the way they are. MWMC would like to see some of our first nations get a sustainable commercial harvest to bring the population down.