THOUSANDS of “rogue seals” pestering fish farms are being relocated by the Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment Department, and are threatening commercial and recreational scale fisheries, a Senate committee into the state’s expanding aquaculture industry has been told.
Fish farms face invasions by rogue seals, a new report says.
THOUSANDS of “rogue seals” pestering fish farms are being relocated by the Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment Department, and are threatening commercial and recreational scale fisheries, a Senate committee into the state’s expanding aquaculture industry has been told.
The rogue seal problem was raised in a submission to the fish farm Senate inquiry lodged by commercial scale fishers, that want to see the seal relocation practice since 1990 cease, and a more permanent solution found by euthanising the problem seals, in the same way farmers can conduct vermin control.
Colleen Osborne, secretary of the Tasmanian Scalefish Fisherman’s Association, wrote the submission on behalf of the TSFA that outlined the adverse impact rogue seals had on commercial and recreational scale fisheries.
“We’re not against salmon farms, we’re against the practice of translocation of rogue seals,” Mrs Osborne said yesterday.
The rogue seals have been relocated from Rocky Cape to Devonport in places that allow ease of access.
The TSFA submission said that invariably the relocation places have been adjacent to commercial scale fishermen’s areas of operation.
The submission gave DPIPWE figures that showed a minimum of 5472 seal relocations had happened, at a cost to taxpayers estimated at about $780 per relocation and the rest paid by fish farms.
The TSFA submission said translocation of the rogue seals, which did not always work when the seals returned, partially solved a problem for the fish farms but created a problem for the wild catch fisheries, predominantly scale fishers.
“In one instance a fisherman’s catch history dropped from approximately five tonnes a year down to just 500 kilograms – in a period of only four years,” the submission said.
A North-West fisherman said yesterday the seals were no longer wild and not afraid of people and would come back to raid his fishing nets like a supermarket instead of going to forage in the wild for food.
The fishers said with the advent of the fish farms, the seal population exploded to the extent that the seals were not an endangered population.
The TSFA submission to the Senate committee said the Seal/Fishery Management Strategy report in 2001 said “$12.1 million” of damage was caused by seals and in addition, there were reports of unprovoked interactions between fish farm workers and seals that had shown threatening behaviours and had caused serious injury.
The submission raised safety risks, arguing the seals had been habituated by the fish farms to recognise man as a food source and if the seals were aggressive on fish farms, they would be aggressive to commercial fishers.
TSFA members had reported an increase in rogue seal encounters and extensive damage to gear and lowered catch rates.
The submission said the translocation of seals also increased the ecological footprint of the aquaculture industry and the risk of disease being spread.
Comment was sought from DPIPWE about seal relocations.
