Researchers warn that today's hunting quotas of about 3,000 animals pose a risk to the long-term survival of the grey seal in the Baltic Sea. The conclusions of this new study are based on statistics from 20th century seal hunting and predictions of future climate change.
Baltic grey seals are genetically isolated from the closest grey seal populations in the Atlantic. They are generally slightly smaller and, unlike solely land breeding seals found in the British Isles, can give birth to young on both drift ice and on land. The population is now facing new challenges in a world with a warming climate and a shortage of appropriately sized prey fish.
The countries around the Baltic Sea have agreed that the grey seal population should be allowed to recover after coming close to extinction in the 20th century due to hunting and environmental contamination. Conflict with fisheries during this period led to a bounty on seals. A biproduct of this is that there are detailed statistics on how many seals were killed each year.
"The culling of individual seals that visit or destroy fishing gear has always been allowed and is not problematic for the survival of the population. It was a few hundred individuals per year and did not affect entire groups of seals.
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