B.C. organisation wants to kill a seals to save a whales

Ken Pearce throttles behind on his outboard motor, his vessel negligence as it cuts by a waters of a reduce Fraser River nearby Steveston, B.C.

He’s speckled a half-dozen seals swimming in a side channel.

“They’ve fed on a rising waves and now they’re entrance in to soak adult a object and snooze,” he says.

Pearce views a animals as a vital hazard to migrating salmon and the endangered torpedo whales that feed on them.

He wants tens of thousands of them killed in a blurb hunt.

His group, Pacific Balance Pinniped Society, has support from some First Nations, blurb fishing groups and elements of a competition fishing industry.

“Pinniped” is a systematic tenure for a family that includes seals and sea lions.

Hundreds of gulf seals are manifest swimming nearby a mouth of a Fraser River looking for salmon. (Chris Corday/CBC)

Pinnipeds put salmon numbers during risk: study

There are some-more than 100,000 seals in B.C. waters, along with tens of thousands of sea lions.

Pearce pronounced a quickest approach to retreat disappearing salmon numbers is to kill tens of thousands of them, shortening their numbers by 50 per cent.

But that’s where a discuss gets as ghastly as a waters of a Fraser.

He cites a investigate that concludes pinnipeds are eating some-more than 600 metric tons of chinook salmon each year in Washington state waters alone.

That adds adult to millions of fish that could be harvested by humans, set aside for torpedo whales, or authorised to spawn.

Earlier this year, lawmakers in a U.S. approved an expansion of an ongoing winnow of sea lions that chase on salmon and steelhead in West Coast rivers.

WATCH: Hundreds of sea lions quarrel for food inside fishing nets in B.C.’s Strait of Georgia

Hunt won’t assistance salmon, critics say

Pearce believes a thought of a bloody massacre in B.C. waters has kept a Department of Fisheries and Oceans and politicians from endorsing his group’s plan.

“They are cute, I’m a initial to agree, but see 80,000? Are they lovable anymore? No, they’re a nuisance.”

But Peter Ross, vice-president of investigate during Ocean Wise, questions Pearce’s assumptions.

“I don’t know if there’s any good predator control investigate that’s ever demonstrated that murdering off a predator has led to some-more prey,” Ross told CBC News.

Critics of a hunt or cull, including Peter Ross of Ocean Wise, contend a devise won’t assistance salmon numbers boost on a B.C. coast. (Martin Diotte/CBC)

He pronounced a food web is complex, and worries a hunt would interrupt a change between seals, salmon and other creatures.

Ross pronounced the decrease in salmon is related some-more to medium drop and meridian change than increases in sign populations.

But disappointment is transparent in those job for a hunt.

Could killing seals assistance torpedo whales?

Gary Biggar, informal executive with a Mé​tis Nation of B.C., supports the idea.

He also fishes commercially and says he’s seen initial palm an blast in numbers given a finish of a B.C. seal hunt in a 1970s.

“I work on a seine vessel now and I’ve seen a race skyrocket, and it’s removing worse and worse,” he says.

Biggar pronounced it’s not a large jump to trust B.C.’s involved southern proprietor torpedo whales would benefit.

The whales are in trouble, in part, due to a miss of their primary food, chinook salmon.

Ken Pearce, a sports fisherman, and Gary Biggar, a blurb fisherman, are both proponents of a sign and sea lion hunt in B.C. (Chris Corday/CBC)

He accuses environmentalists and governments of focusing on other problems, rather than acknowledging a impact of seals and sea lions on salmon.

“They’ve combined it by safeguarding these animals to a indicate that now we possibly strengthen seals or we do something to save a torpedo whales and a salmon resources.”

Biggar and Pearce insist on job it a collect rather than a cull, observant they have markets for sign pelts and beef lined adult and people peaceful to hunt and routine a animals.

They contend they would acquire serve systematic investigate to prove, or disprove, a impact of a sign hunt on salmon stocks.

Tens of thousands of sea lions and some-more than 100,000 seals live on a B.C. coast. (Associated Press)

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Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-group-kill-seals-save-whales-1.4818745?cmp=rss