Why worry about seals, when their populations are high and they are not endangered?
GSCS is genuinely worried about the future of seals. Changes in Atlantic Canadian seals have been noted recently, in their biology and in their behaviour, which suggest that seals are also responding to broad shifts occurring in the ocean. The nature of these trends, if they continue, may soon threaten the continued survival of seals (whether we hunt them or not). The assumption that any marine animal population will continue to replace its numbers in the future as it did in the past cannot be justified today. The negative shift in zooplankton in fish food plus the broad decline in fish growth, promises to naturally curtail seal numbers, and possibly in the very near future. Seals have been observed recently (by scientists) to be in lowered physical condition (less fat) and to be experiencing a lower pregnancy rate than they did a few decades ago. These signals suggest a lowering of the food availability for seals. Some will point out that this pattern means that seal numbers have reac
