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Culling on seals to end Cape Cod Shark "epidemic." .
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Well, a Massachusetts group wants to end federal protection for seals to mitigate Cape Cod sharks. A culling as they say.
Mass. Peter Howell, a founder of the Seal Action Committee, said Wednesday, July 17, that the Nantucket-based group wants Congress to amend the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act so that seals and other species can be removed from the law’s list of protected animals if their populations have sufficiently rebounded. The call comes as the region's seal population — estimated in the hundreds of thousands — has been blamed for drawing droves of great white sharks in recent years. Seals are the favored meal for the powerful predators.
Cape Cod had two shark attacks on humans last summer, including the state's first fatal one in more than 80 years. I am hopeful that amending the federal law will be a longshot since the idea doesn't appear to have strong support, and Democratic Rep. Bill Keating, who represents Cape Cod, said delisting seals from the protection act wouldn't change things. He states, “My staff and I have spoken with some of the top scientists in the nation about this matter, and they have told us that culling seals in this region is not effective in controlling these populations because they would be immediately repopulated by the migration of gray seals from Canada."
The Marine Mammal Protection Act allows states to assume the responsibility for conservation and management of a species once it reaches its optimum sustainable population. States like Washington have taken advantage of this in order to reduce their sea lion populations, but addressing Cape Cod's seals could be more difficult as it’s a fairly large population of nearly 300,000 seals that go back and forth between Canada and the U.S. So the 10,000 that are on a specific beach today are not the same 10,000 that might be there tomorrow. What are some practical solutions? Well, the commission heard Wednesday from a Boston company offering a free, three-month pilot of an outdoor speaker system officials can use to order people out of the waters in the event a shark is spotted.
Prior to the start of this beach season, Cape Cod towns invested in emergency call boxes, improved beach medical kits and other equipment to improve their response in the event of another attack.
So culling.
A recent report in the United Kingdom concluded that a pilot culling program did not kill badgers humanely in many cases. What would you call an ethical cull? I suppose, the avoidance of suffering is more important than the avoidance of death. For example, a sharpshooter immediately removing an unwitting animal is in most cases preferable to a protracted and disruptive capture, with the attendant fear and pain. As such, any contact with wildlife should be minimal and humane. And there must be an evidence-based rationale for removal—not wishful thinking, but a sound plan where risks are anticipated and avoided, and the intended goal of disease reduction or achieving a sustainable population level highly likely and constantly monitored.
When bats are culled in South America to prevent rabies, for example, care must be taken to remove overabundant vampire bats, rather than insectivorous bats that typically do not interact with humans but play a positive role in reducing crop pests.
When West Nile virus first appeared in New York, the city sprayed pesticide at dusk, when those pesky mosquitoes that prefer humans come out. It turned out that the major transmitter of the virus was a daytime mosquito that feeds primarily on birds, so the spraying targeted the wrong species.
Wildlife managers have portrayed culling as a balancing mechanism for ecosystems. Some wildlife advocates have portrayed the practice as disruptive to ecosystems. Is this a debate about the definition of "natural"?
I think there are two strong strains here that get confused in our society. There are people who are really committed to wildlife conservation. That refers to maintaining the health of the most biodiverse habitats possible. And then there are animal rights advocates, who believe that every animal is ethically considerable and should have the right to live.
I think these two camps sometimes overlap in that wildlife conservationists want to find the most humane ways of managing ecosystems, but believe that the genie is out of the bottle—we live in an artificial set of habitats that must be managed or we will lose biodiversity. And then there are the animal rights people who say we'll deal with that as we come to it, but we have to find a way to make room for every animal to fit into the ark.
If wildlife managers don't cull, then nature culls, and we will see animals starving habitat types that used to be vibrant and beautiful consisting of highly reduced numbers of species. That's the specter that frightens wildlife conservationists, whereas I think those with the animal rights perspective feel that, ethically, we lose our souls if we cannot respect the divine spark in every individual animal.
One thing I am sure of is the planet is overpopulated by humans.
Mass. Peter Howell, a founder of the Seal Action Committee, said Wednesday, July 17, that the Nantucket-based group wants Congress to amend the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act so that seals and other species can be removed from the law’s list of protected animals if their populations have sufficiently rebounded. The call comes as the region's seal population — estimated in the hundreds of thousands — has been blamed for drawing droves of great white sharks in recent years. Seals are the favored meal for the powerful predators.
Cape Cod had two shark attacks on humans last summer, including the state's first fatal one in more than 80 years. I am hopeful that amending the federal law will be a longshot since the idea doesn't appear to have strong support, and Democratic Rep. Bill Keating, who represents Cape Cod, said delisting seals from the protection act wouldn't change things. He states, “My staff and I have spoken with some of the top scientists in the nation about this matter, and they have told us that culling seals in this region is not effective in controlling these populations because they would be immediately repopulated by the migration of gray seals from Canada."
The Marine Mammal Protection Act allows states to assume the responsibility for conservation and management of a species once it reaches its optimum sustainable population. States like Washington have taken advantage of this in order to reduce their sea lion populations, but addressing Cape Cod's seals could be more difficult as it’s a fairly large population of nearly 300,000 seals that go back and forth between Canada and the U.S. So the 10,000 that are on a specific beach today are not the same 10,000 that might be there tomorrow. What are some practical solutions? Well, the commission heard Wednesday from a Boston company offering a free, three-month pilot of an outdoor speaker system officials can use to order people out of the waters in the event a shark is spotted.
Prior to the start of this beach season, Cape Cod towns invested in emergency call boxes, improved beach medical kits and other equipment to improve their response in the event of another attack.
So culling.
A recent report in the United Kingdom concluded that a pilot culling program did not kill badgers humanely in many cases. What would you call an ethical cull? I suppose, the avoidance of suffering is more important than the avoidance of death. For example, a sharpshooter immediately removing an unwitting animal is in most cases preferable to a protracted and disruptive capture, with the attendant fear and pain. As such, any contact with wildlife should be minimal and humane. And there must be an evidence-based rationale for removal—not wishful thinking, but a sound plan where risks are anticipated and avoided, and the intended goal of disease reduction or achieving a sustainable population level highly likely and constantly monitored.
When bats are culled in South America to prevent rabies, for example, care must be taken to remove overabundant vampire bats, rather than insectivorous bats that typically do not interact with humans but play a positive role in reducing crop pests.
When West Nile virus first appeared in New York, the city sprayed pesticide at dusk, when those pesky mosquitoes that prefer humans come out. It turned out that the major transmitter of the virus was a daytime mosquito that feeds primarily on birds, so the spraying targeted the wrong species.
Wildlife managers have portrayed culling as a balancing mechanism for ecosystems. Some wildlife advocates have portrayed the practice as disruptive to ecosystems. Is this a debate about the definition of "natural"?
I think there are two strong strains here that get confused in our society. There are people who are really committed to wildlife conservation. That refers to maintaining the health of the most biodiverse habitats possible. And then there are animal rights advocates, who believe that every animal is ethically considerable and should have the right to live.
I think these two camps sometimes overlap in that wildlife conservationists want to find the most humane ways of managing ecosystems, but believe that the genie is out of the bottle—we live in an artificial set of habitats that must be managed or we will lose biodiversity. And then there are the animal rights people who say we'll deal with that as we come to it, but we have to find a way to make room for every animal to fit into the ark.
If wildlife managers don't cull, then nature culls, and we will see animals starving habitat types that used to be vibrant and beautiful consisting of highly reduced numbers of species. That's the specter that frightens wildlife conservationists, whereas I think those with the animal rights perspective feel that, ethically, we lose our souls if we cannot respect the divine spark in every individual animal.
One thing I am sure of is the planet is overpopulated by humans.
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On the other hand, some species of pinniped are probably overpopulated on both coasts. The solution to that is not really repeal of the MMPA (though it could use some modifications in some areas to bring it more in line with the way we treat other large predators like grizzly bears). Unfortunately for sharkophobes, the most ethical and realistic solution is to restore their natural predators (ie. big sharks) to their natural abundance, which is quite a lot higher than we're used to dealing with.
People kill all the wolves, holy shit there are so many deer and coyote now. Let's shoot all the deer and coyote. Fuck, rabbits are everywhere!
You can't forcefully change the local ecosystem and then pretend a little killing once in a while will maintain it, and I would call two attacks per year remarkably low. If you want to avoid all risk of dying to a shark attack, don't go swimming where hungry sharks see you as food. It's an associated risk and I'm a little tired of humanity just murderfucking their way through the biomass on this planet they find a bummer.
I don't give two shits if it means tourists are scared of being in the water, they can go swim in a fucking pool if they really feel the need to be totally submerged in water somewhere. This isn't the 1800s where it's super-cool to slaughter entire animal species because people want buffalo hide wallets or stupid shit like that.
Awareness and warnings should work just fine?
Washington and hopefully bc will be doing a seal cull or culls in the next few years to protect salmon and therefore southern resident killer whales.
I believe indigenous groups in both regions also have recently received the ok to hunt seals and market seal products (meat etc.) which will have some impact.
Humans fucked up the balance everywhere and now its our responsibility to manage it.
Allowing overpopulation of a species promotes disease and starvation and disrupts other species, and increases encounters with humans, pets, or livestock, which often end in tragedy for both sides. All of that is on human hands as much as the original damage, and taking the predators role and culling seals is sometimes the only way to keep seals sustainable.
Culling prey to reduce predator population, though? THAT is crazy. That means reducing the prey below sustainable levels, and that's saying something for how severely sharks and predatory cetaceans have been reduced. If the predator legitimately needs to be reduced, you cull the predator, not the prey.
I fail to see how having a local predator species do the murderfucking is that much inherently superior, beyond it being more self-managing.
Hunters get bored. Predators don't stop being hungry. Also hunters tend to want the big, healthy animals. Predators would too but they know it isn't worth it so they aim for easier kills. It has a distinct effect on population dynamics.
Not really. In a healthy ecosystem, those "starved to death" cases are from very young/injured/old animals, not emaciated animals that should be in their prime but are competing with a population 2-3 times a healthy size. The "rebounding" is minimal because there aren't mass die-offs from starvation leading to predator population booms from the easy meat leading to another mass die-off as predators starve to death. Once animals mature in a functional ecosystem, it's uncommon for them to just up and starve to death outside age or unusual circumstances like droughts.
A balanced system has people sometimes finding the odd very old animal that has starved to death, not herds of animals that up and died from hunger being fed upon by piles of predators that just popped out dozens of progeny.
Luckily it seems like the congressional representation for the Cape has also talked to a marine biologist or two that also explained a seal culling was a dumb idea that won't work.
I just tell them to do what I do and always make sure your sister is always in deeper water than you. As bait.
... good point. In fact, I encourage everybody on earth to avoid the beach at all costs. Especially the one near me, and particularly on nice sunny days with a light breeze, clear water, and a rolling surf. Trust me, you don't want any of that nonsense.
Taste the water.
If it’s salty there are sharks nearby.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_shark
Like, sharks are everywhere all the time. I assume there is a shark within a quarter mile of me any time I'm in the ocean and I'm in the ocean a lot.
There are like 1-2 rules to not getting bit by a shark, don't be out in a wetsuit at dusk and don't be in the water next to a bloody carcass.
But yes, I know.
Two attacks in that area, one fatal, last year.
Two shark attacks last year with one death resulting.
Oh, right. Best for everyone to keep away from all attractive bodies of water.
There seems to be a bunch of info. Here is a ling to Cape Cod region. https://www.mass.gov/service-details/cape-cod-region
Any plan to cull seals would likely face extreme challenges, including overcoming the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the likely opposition of both local and national environmental organizations. There has been no authorized seal culling under the Act related to shark attacks since the law was passed in 1972, according to Mike Asaro, Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Branch Chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office. The law gives authority to manage pinnipeds (seals) to NOAA, which is under the department of commerce. It contains a provision for an administrative waiver, but there are a number of caveats, including requiring that a ruling by the secretary of the department be based on the “best scientific evidence available” and be done in consultation with the Marine Mammal Commission, an independent government agency set up under the Act to further the conservation of marine mammals and their environment. Any taking must also be in accord with sound principles of resource protection and conservation. Organizations like Mass Audubon would look closely at any science put forward to support culling as the seals that populate the Cape are part of the greater Northwest Atlantic population which numbers around 600,000, and others would quickly repopulate the area if a large number were removed.
Fair enough, it still doesn't seem like an actual problem, certainly not worth culling of any kind.
http://www.sharkattackdata.com/place/united_states_of_america/massachusetts
And how many people are in the water there every day.
The general approach here has been "birth control" style population control but it's a slow burn process.
I guess my point is "let nature take it's course" ignores the massive weight on the scale that is humanity and it's silly in the extreme to pretend that we're somehow outside the loop.
Seals and sea lions are largely not a menace to anything though, with some exceptions*. There's no advantage to reducing their population.*
*Yes I know about the steelhead and salmon.
Agreed. Outside of specific areas/scenarios they are fine.
I think this is true of all/*most animals.
I think that humans should be directly involved in situations where warranted though.
This shark thing doesn't qualify IMO and it seems the biologists agree
You can also look at this website:
https://www.ocearch.org/?list
"Real time" tracking for a number of White Sharks.
Like the US built a society where cars kill 40,000 people a year. You can multiply the number of predator attacks by a thousand and not get close to that.
I feel like "droves of great whites" are likelier to save lives on the balance by keeping people from driving to the fucking beach.
I think we're in agreement. I wouldn't advocate to go enter into places or structures where things are "fine" but only where there is a demonstrable, human caused, imbalance.
Logically, this checks out.
On a purely irrational, emotional level, I'm wayyyyyyyyyyy more scared of sharks than automobiles. I don't go in the ocean at all because the idea of a huge carnivorous sea monster suddenly appearing right next to me is fucking terrifying.
I'm not alone, either. I dated someone once who was so scared of sharks that she wouldn't even go swimming in a pool by herself because of an irrational fear that a shark would somehow appear.
Wish I was a shark
Great picture! I think it’s called Galeophobia. Which I am pretty sure I have. Even in the shower. I can be swimming in a pool and just imagine a shark and I jump out. I am unpopular with the surfers in my area (there are not many sightings of great whites here in NH & ME Seacoast) because I get really uncomfortable and nervous and head for shore, irrationally and much like a bedlamite. But the ocean water I am in is touching great white sharks somewhere!