Grey Matters Part One of a Two Part Series

by Karen Burke

The renewed grey seal population, thriving due to conservation efforts, now poses dilemmas for fishermen and conservationists both.. Photo: Bar Harbor Whale Watch Co.

Protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the United States, it is illegal to hunt and harvest grey seals, also known as “horseheads,” for the wide nostrils and elongated snout of the adult males. Larger than the harbor seal, males can weigh 170 to 310 kilograms and be as long as 230 cm. Western Atlantic grey seals typically are larger, up to 20% larger than their Eastern Atlantic counterparts. Male grey seals are dark with light patches, females light with dark spots.

Largest of the east coast seals, grey seals favor the breeding grounds of Sable Island, NS and areas in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Preferring ledges, rocky coastlines, caves and even sand beaches for hauling out, the grey seal is expanding its range in the Gulf of Maine. 

Aerial Surveys
There is evidence in 400-year-old Indian middens that, at one time, grey seals and harbor seals may have been equally plentiful in what is now Maine. The middens, or refuse heaps, at the Turner archeological site on North Haven Island contain as many grey seal bones as harbor seal bones. According to researcher Jim Gilbert, the seal had long been harvested and chased away from its coastal habitat. Hunted in earlier times, each part of the seal is useful, from the meat to skin and blubber. Massachusetts offered a bounty on the creature until 1962. 

Gilbert, professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Maine in Orono, has been studying seals since 1972. Surveying the coast of Maine by air, he photographs seal rookeries and individual seals. Gilbert also participates in tracking seals with electronic and tag devices. 

As the creatures were nearly extinct, sightings of grey seals were rare or non-existent in Maine waters in 1987. While all the reasons for the historical decline in population in Maine are unknown _ some site over hunting, a decline in food sources and entanglement in fishing gear _ the nineties saw a return of grey seals to Penobscot Bay. Conducting aerial surveys for years, Gilbert first noted a small colony of grey seal pups in Penobscot Bay in 1994. Two hundred and fifty pups were counted this year. Birthing occurs in January and February. Maine’s grey seal population, estimated to be approximately seventeen hundred in 2001, is growing. Gilbert reports that near Nantucket, on Muskeget Island in Massachusetts, where less than twenty seals were found ten years ago, fifteen hundred were counted this winter. Surmising that the grey seal is “filling a previous void,” scientists view the revival of the species as a positive.

The total number of grey seals in the Western Atlantic population is estimated to be 150,000-195,000, although data is not current and a bit unreliable, due to the wide geographic range of the population. In Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) says it will undertake a count in 2005. Scientists from the New England Aquarium in Boston agree the West Atlantic population of grey seals is increasing in size and range. 

[The United Kingdom, Ireland, and coastal waters of Iceland, Norway and Russia are home to an estimated 130,000-140,000, known as the Eastern Atlantic population. The Baltic Sea has another 7,500.] 

Habits and Habitat
Grey seals have a wide range, some say up to one thousand kilometers. The Sable Island population interchanges with that of the Maine Coast. A grey seal off Stonington was found to have been branded on Sable Island, NS. In another situation, reports Gilbert, a pup, “Stephanie,” left Penobscot Bay, traveled to Portland then out to Georges Bank, offshore of Cape Cod and then back to Georges Bank.

Colonies form a rookery and deliver the pups in January or February on the east coast. During the nursing period of 21-28 days, neither the dominant males nor lactating females feed. Once they wean, the pups live off blubber reserves and go to sea at about five to eight weeks of age. At this time, they are on their own. 

Feeding mostly on bottom fish – silver hake, dogfish, cod, flounder and schools of herring _ seals swallow their meals whole. The size of the fish consumed is 30cm or less. “None of the food habit studies have shown that there are lobsters in them (seal stomachs),” replied Gilbert, in response to the question “Do seals eat lobster?” Eating up to fifteen pounds of food a day in aquarium settings, half of the grey seals studied are likely to have empty stomachs. Yet seals are reported to be opportunistic feeders and lobstermen argue grey seals go after bait, mauling traps to get at bait bags and even lobster. The Seal Conservation Society states seals are individualistic in food preferences, sometimes eating not only crustaceans and cephalopods, but also sand eels and seabirds. 

Gear And Gut
As the cod fishery makes a comeback, some see the grey seal threatening the numbers of cod, since cod is a food source for the grey seal. Much of the concern is for heavily-populated areas, such as Sable Island. Grey seals, howver, also eat predators that feed on cod.

Witnessing the movement of grey seals into Southwest Nova Scotia, lobstermen explain the destruction and loss of gear as grey seals mauling traps, seeking the bait in traps as food. Deep divers, seals navigate toward salmon aquaculture sites for food, as well. The New England Aquarium reports “Although salmon farmers employ deterrents such as double netting, acoustic seal-scarers and life-size fiberglass models of killer whales (a natural predator), none are 100% effective.” Expensive systems can be destroyed in minutes by the voracious seal. While no total fishery estimate is available regarding gear loss due to grey seals, the salmon industry indicates losses of about one million dollars.

Fishermen also report the devastating effects of the cod worm, spread through seal feces. Cod worm is a parasite that infects the flesh of groundfish, cod being the most notable species. Resistant to freezing, the parasite can become active in the frying pan _ not a pleasant experience for the consumer. Fishermen providing groundfish for market and human consumption express concern over the disease. The renewed grey seal population, thriving due to conservation efforts, now poses dilemmas for fishermen and conservationists both.

Canadian Harvest Plan 
A commercial hunt of ten thousand grey seals over a two-year period, recently approved by the DFO, provoked publicity. While fishermen asked for a culling of the herd on Sable Island, only the Gulf of St. Lawrence population is open for grey seal hunting at this time, according to the new regulations. Most of the hunting occurs around the Magdalen Islands and Cape Breton. The First Nation and Inuit peoples have practiced subsistence hunting of the grey seal traditionally for generations. 

Fisheries officers “monitor catches, ensure humane hunting practices and enforce regulations and license conditions” concerning the seal hunt, according to information supplied by the DFO. Recognizing that the “hunting of seals is not fundamentally different from the exploitation of livestock,” the Royal Commission on Seals and Sealing approves seal hunting methods in Canada. The hunt remains controversial as images of bloody seals on ice floes appear in the media.