It is now time for 'seal-safe' farmed salmon

In a recent poll 64% of the UK public would be against farmed salmon if it involved the killing of seals.

Despite this UK salmon farmers shoot hundreds of grey and common seals every year that are said to be a threat to salmon or the sea-cage net.

It is believed that many more seals are killed around the UK by people involved with commercial fishing and salmon farming that pose no danger whatsoever to the profitability of their businesses.

The UK has 40% of the world's population of grey seals (164,000) and 20,000 of the far less common 'common' seals, a population that has seen some drastic declines in recent years. If these numbers appear on paper to be healthy, it is worth remembering that the African lion population has fallen from 150,000-200,000 in the 1980's to a mere 18,000-25,000 today, mostly as a result of conflict with farmers.

Seals are intelligent mammals that spend most of their time in the sea and feed on fish, a bit like dolphins and porpoises, but in the mind of the UK seafood business that's where the similarity ends.

In 1990 the 'dolphin safe' label was introduced by the US Dept. of Commerce and has spread so successfully around the world that it is now almost universally accepted that you make canned tuna as cetacean friendly as possible.

If this can be achieved for a wild-caught pelagic species like tuna then why on earth are we still having to slaughter seals in order to protect salmon that are being farmed in highly controlled sites?

We are killing seals for the same reason that we slaughtered the wolf in the 17th century to protect cattle and sheep, and endangering whole populations of wild animals to put cheaper food on our plates is not a practice that should be tolerated.

We've learnt our lesson with 'dolphin-safe' tuna, now let's have 'seal-safe' farmed salmon.

UK sea angling records tell a sorry tale

If you need proof that something is drastically wrong with our sea fish populations you need look no further than the British sea fish angling records.

These records will give you little indication of the size of fish prior to large scale commercial exploitation (archaeological records show that cod in medieval times could be several meters long), but for a look at the modern state of our marine environment it is enlightening.

If you take an average of the years in which the record fish were caught, the heyday for catching big fish in UK waters in modern times was roughly in the mid-1980's, and it's been pretty much downhill ever since.

No British sea fish record has been officially broken since 2002 (Couch's sea bream) and the oldest record still standing is from 1933 (Atlantic bluefin tuna - they left us when the N. Sea herring fishery collapsed).

Taking a closer look and accounting for commercial fish species only, the picture looks even bleaker.

The largest bass was caught in 1988, cod in 1992, haddock in 1978, halibut in 1979, herring in 1973, ling in 1989, mackerel in 1984, monkfish in 1984, skate in 1986 and plaice in 1989. (Source: British Record Fish Committee). It would be extremely surprising if any of these records are ever broken again.

Whilst this comparison can in no way be described as a definitive account of the state of the UK's seas, it is, for a person who grew up in the 1970's and was used to frequently seeing a 40lb cod or ling adorning the cover of the sea angling press, a sobering reminder of what we have lost beneath our surrounding seas.

Why is marine conservation so neglected?

There are hundreds of organisations in the UK devoted to the conservation of the land and its animals. Incredibly there is only one well known organisation entirely dedicated to protecting our marine environment, the Marine Conservation Society.

Despite the fact that the UK is an island which depends on the sea for it's survival (well the Gulf Stream at least) there are more organisations devoted to saving bats than the animals that live below our chilly waters.

Even though some progress has been made most people still regard the sea and the animals in it as nothing more than a exploitable resource. Marine mammals and some reptiles are afforded legal protection, but almost unbelievably, hardly any native marine fish species (including the great white shark should it ever visit us) are protected by law.

Ten percent of the UK landmass is protected but less than one percent of our entire surrounding seas. Our first national park was created in 1951 but it was only 2003 when the tiny Lundy Island Marine Reserve received a no-take zone status.

National newspapers that wouldn't dream of publishing a picture of a man with a gun standing next to a shot lion will still publish pictures of endangered sharks like the thresher and mako killed by so-called sports fishermen for no other reason than an ego trip.

Perhaps what the marine conservation movement needs is a 'Born Free' for our generation, 'An Inconvenient Truth' for our marine environment? The documentary 'The End of the Line', based on the fish loving visionary Charles Clover's book of the same name is attempting this feat, and god knows our marine animals currently need all the help they can get.