Seals everywhere are voracious competitors for the fish that humans catch and farm. They are marine mammals and are thus protected by the EU and other governments around the world, protections which date back decades to when marine mammal populations were depleted. But for seals at least, this is no longer a problem for them, it has become a problem for harvesters. Seals’ burgeoning numbers are causing serious damage to fishermen and aquaculture. In Latvia, seals eat 2-3 times as many fish as fishermen catch, often taking mortal bites out of fish that die a wasteful death or spread the resulting infection in their wounds to other fish. They also tear up nets and allow escapements. In Latvia and other Baltic countries, fishermen are compensated for lost fish and damaged gear, “But,” says Normunds Riekstiņš, director of Latvia’s Fisheries Department at the Ministry of Agriculture, “of course this is not a solution and, in principle, more and more compensation has to be paid and less and less is caught.”
Fishermen and their representatives have worked for decades to find solutions to the seal problem, but it keeps growing. Recently, an association of 74 Latvian harvesters, Mazjūras zvejnieki, has stepped up pressure on government with a proposal to allow some harvesters the right to kill seals, enough to partly alleviate the problem and the damage that seals cause. The idea is to limit the seal hunt to those which come in close proximity to harvesting gear and fish. Cīrulis, a representative of coastal fishermen, claims that Latvia is the only country where fishermen are not allowed to hunt seals. In Estonia, for example, protective hunting is allowed. Support from authorities responsible for the environment would be helpful to their cause, and decisions on proposals to allow seal hunting are under consideration by Latvia’s Nature Conservation Agency and other responsible authorities.