Skipper Calls For Seals To Go On The Pill

A leading fishing boat skipper has a novel new way to control hungry seals marauding through cod stocks off the North Sea coast - put them on the Pill!

Skippers from Whitby to the Tyne are worried that catches of cod, other white fish and salmon are falling to unprecedented low levels year by year.

Seals are now a protected species and can no longer be culled as they were in the past and fishermen say the situation is getting out of hand.

Top skipper Richard Brewer said "There are about ten times the amount of seals there were 20 years ago and they have no natural predators. Neither fishermen nor anyone else can touch them.

"A full grown seal can eat well over its own body weight in fish every day. In the past, they were culled by whalers and fishermen."

Mr Brewer said seals decimate not only white fish stocks, but now live and feed in estuaries now these rivers are being cleaned up.

"People think seals just eat a small amount, but they don't. Fishermen who have been making their living for generations are suffering but are totally powerless to do anything about it.

"We agree seals are part of the natural balance, but there's thousands more of them than there were several years ago.

"We'd like to see some sort of contraceptive methods introduced. They could dart them or feed it to them like they do with elephants in Africa.

"This would be a humane solution. We have talked about this and intend to raise this idea our MP and then the Government."