OneKind's Look Out for Seals campaign won greater legal protection for seals but shooting licence applications show the scale of the problem.
Seal licensing provisions under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 have now come into force, making it an offence to kill any seal in Scotland at any time, except when permitted under a specific licence or to end an animal’s suffering.
Our supporters sent tens of thousands of messages to MSPs asking them to vote for better legal protection for seals. Celebrities that supported our campaign included Queen rock legend Brian May and TV naturalists Chris Packham and Terry Nutkins. Richard Briers provided a voiceover for our short film 'Bonnie's Tale' - you can watch it below.
The first annual licences have now been issued to people who say they need to manage seal numbers to prevent serious damage to fisheries or to protect the health and welfare of farmed fish.
The Scottish Government is also introducing conservation areas designed to protect vulnerable local populations of common seals, covering Moray Firth, Shetland, Orkney, Firth of Tay and the Western Isles. Of these, the first four were subject to common seal conservation orders under the previous legislation.
Scottish waters have been divided up into eight Seal Management Areas – East Coast, Moray Firth, Orkney and North Coast, Shetland, South West Scotland, Western Highlands and Western Isles – and a maximum permitted biological removal (PBR) figure calculated for each area.
Applicants for the 65 licences granted by Marine Scotland asked to kill a total of 2,272 seals over the coming year (1,614 grey seals and 658 common seals); and licences were actually granted to kill a total of 1,298 seals (984 grey seals and 314 common seals).
More than half of the licences (36 out of 65) were granted to fish farms who stated that they needed to kill seals to protect the health and welfare of their farmed fish, with the greatest number of these licences going to the Western Highlands, the Western Isles and Shetland.
Licences were also granted for the purpose of protecting fisheries and fish farms from serious damage.
Distribution of seal shooting
Taking both categories together, the areas applying for, and receiving, the largest numbers of licences were: Western Highlands (19); Western Isles (11); Orkney and North Coast (11). Potentially, in these three areas alone, 900 seals could legally be killed at any time over the coming year.
These are disappointingly high figures: but the Scottish Government stresses that “the numbers of seals granted under licence represent a maximum limit and the shooting of seals should be a last resort.
It is anticipated on the basis of previous experience that licensees will in most cases shoot less than the maximum.” In addition, licensees will have to report the numbers of seals they shoot on a quarterly basis and the true extent of seal killing will become known (more or less), for the first time ever.
No closed season
A major concern for OneKind is the fact that the new regime no longer provides a closed season to protect mother seals and their pups at breeding times.
Shooting a pregnant seal means that her pup dies too; and shooting a lactating mother leaves her orphaned pup to die slowly from stress, starvation and dehydration – an unacceptably inhumane death for any animal.
So there remain major concerns over how this will work in practice. However, Marine Scotland says that “if considered necessary”, it will use additional powers under the Marine Act to amend seal licences and provide additional protection for seals during the breeding seasons.
Alternatives to shooting
We also campaigned for an amendment to make fisheries and fish farms demonstrate that they had genuinely tried non-lethal methods such as tensioned nets, acoustic deterrents, seal blinds, and anti-predator nets to reduce competition between humans and seals.
Marine Scotland reports that it commissioned a survey of fish farms applying for seal licences, and that “almost all fish farms seeking a seal licence already employ at least one and many a number of non-lethal measures.” We will be seeking further information about the use of these methods and their effectiveness.
It will take some time before we can say for certain that the new regime genuinely offers better protection for Scotland’s seals.
Some critics believe that it opens the door to a seal cull, with the risk that the numbers on licences will be seen as a quota to be killed, rather than a maximum that may only be taken as a last resort.
Certainly, if the net effect is simply to legalise the killing of almost 1,300 seals, at any time of year, we will not have achieved the reform that was so badly needed.
But if the new system is observed properly by fisheries and fish farms, if it is rigorously enforced, and if non-lethal seal exclusion and deterrent systems continue to be developed and properly used – we are more optimistic. Potentially, it is a step in the right direction.
Finally, if you think someone has shot a seal, don’t hesitate to contact the local police. Illegal seal-shooting has been an entrenched problem in some parts of Scotland, and old habits may die hard.
The virtue of the new Act is that it doesn’t depend on obscure interpretations of the kind that stymied many a potential case under the old Conservation of Seals Act – now, the police can easily confirm whether the shooting was covered by a licence.