We pay for ‘bullets to shoot seals’

Marine Scotland data has revealed that fish-farm companies have shot more than 300 seals during 2011 and 2012.

John Robins, Secretary of the Save Our Seals Fund (SOSF) in Scotland, said they are calling on the US Government to ban imports of farmed salmon and on retailers to stop selling the produce of ‘seal unfriendly’ Scottish salmon farms. He went on, ‘I hope the US Government can force Scottish salmon farmers to install seal exclusion nets, something the Scottish Government and the RSPCA have disgracefully failed to do. When you buy Scottish farmed salmon, even RSPCA-endorsed Scottish farmed salmon, you pay for bullets to shoot seals.’

The Scottish Government, SOSF claims, have admitted that 80% of the nation’s salmon farms licensed to shoot seals do not have anti-predator nets. Marine Scotland has refused to name the particular sites where the seals were killed, but when the Arran Community Council investigated the St Molios fish farm in Lamlash some years ago, its manager said seals were shot when necessary. He claimed that a seal tangled in an exclusion net dies a worse death than through shooting.

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