from Sunday Herald, 28 June 2015
Both sides in Scotland’s escalating seal-shooting wars could face charges after a series of dramatic confrontations between salmon fishermen and animal rights activists on cliffs and beaches along the north and east coasts.
Police have revealed that they have sent reports to the procurator fiscal about three recent incidents involving members of Montrose-based Usan Salmon Fisheries and the international environmental group, Sea Shepherd. The company has been shooting seals to prevent them eating salmon caught in nets, while the activists have been trying to protect the seals.
One incident on the 19 May in Gamrie Bay near Gardenstown in Aberdeenshire is understood to be about the alleged killing of legally protected seabirds. A second incident in the same place on 12 June concerned an alleged breach of the peace.
The third incident was on 10 June at Murkle Bay near Castletown in Caithness and involved alleged reckless conduct. According to police sources, both the salmon company and Sea Shepherd made complaints against each other, and both were the subjects of reports to the procurator fiscal.
On another occasion on 2 June at the village of Crovie on Gamrie Bay police firearms officers attended and were seen to take possession of a rifle and ammunition while a complaint was investigated. The rifle was returned and “no criminality” was found.
For the second year running, Sea Shepherd is running a summer-long campaign to defend seals in northeast Scotland. It has mobilised three boats and around 80 volunteers from 12 countries who’ve been monitoring and filming the shooters, sometimes putting themselves in front of seals.
They say they have filmed three seals being legally shot in Gamrie Bay, and believe a fourth was also shot there. In Murkle Bay, they say they filmed two seals being legally shot, and believe a further two were shot off camera.
Three short videos released by Sea Shepherd show the sea turning red after two seals were shot, as well as a seal killed by a possible bullet wound to the head. The group is understood to have provided the police with over 300 gigabytes of high-definition film footage.
The Sunday Herald has seen an additional film from the Hunt Saboteurs Association, which is running a parallel operation around Montrose, claiming to show a guillemot trapped in a salmon net being killed. Usan staff have also been extensively filming activists filming them, though none of their footage has been publicly released.
The family-run fishing firm, which trades as Scottish Wild Salmon Company, has repeatedly refused to talk to the media. It has a license from the Scottish Government to shoot seals as a last resort to protect its salmon netting business. It has previously criticised animal campaigners’ tactics, and has been filmed describing them as “environmental terrorists”.
One of Usan’s directors, David Pullar, was contacted by the Sunday Herald via telephone on Friday. “We’re making no statements whatsoever,” he said.
“We’re sick to the back teeth of being misrepresented. Believe any of the propaganda if you want to.” When asked about police involvement, he added: “Things are with the police and you should speak to them.”
When asked about claims that Usan had killed seabirds, he said: “Absolute nonsense. We have never damaged any seabirds. We’re not going to say any more about it, OK?”
But Rob Read, the Sea Shepherd skipper who has been coordinating its seal defence campaign, criticised the salmon company. Trapping salmon in nets provided an irresistible temptation for seals, he said.
“If you put a bag of sweeties before a child, they are going to go for it. It’s an easy meal for them. It’s the fishermen who are causing the problem.”
Fishermen should accept occasional losses to seals, Read argued, and market their products at a premium for being “seal-friendly”. They weren’t making enough use of acoustic methods to scare seals away from nets, he alleged.
He pointed out that just because a seal was in the vicinity of salmon nets didn’t mean it was bound to eat the salmon. Post-mortems suggested that salmon were only a small proportion of their diet, he claimed.
Read accused the Scottish Government of failing to monitor the seals shot under the licences it granted. “It’s a situation open to huge abuse,” he said. “That’s why we are monitoring it.”
Seal shooting was damaging Scotland’s image as a haven for wildlife and harming tourism, he contended. Sea Shepherd is offering a £7,500 reward for information, photographic or video evidence which directly leads to the successful prosecution of any individuals or companies for deliberately and illegally killing seals or other endangered marine wildlife around the UK coast.
The Police Scotland superintendent coordinating responses to seal-shooting incidents, Graeme Murdoch, stressed that these were “emotive issues” which the police approached with objectivity and independence. “Police Scotland is acutely aware that tensions and potential conflict can arise when commercial and environmental interests are seen to be at odds with each other,” he said.
“The role of the police is to investigate allegations of crime, to maintain public order and to protect the rights and lawful activities of all individuals and groups. We will enforce the law in a fair and proportionate way but we are also actively involved in direct communication with parties on all sides of these issues in order to provide guidance, discourage conflict and to minimise disruption to communities.”
John Robins, an animal rights campaigner from the Save Our Seals Fund, has written to the Scottish Environment Minister, Dr Aileen McLeod, urging a review of seal-shooting licences in the light of the new video evidence. The seals being shot weren’t apparently interfering with salmon nets, he argued.
“It is sickening to see seals being shot for no good reason,” he said. “If the seals shot at the netting stations were female common seals it is likely that their new-born pups will now starve to death.”
He added: “I’ve asked the Scottish Government to fully investigate the shootings at the salmon nets as the protocol required under the seal licensing scheme does not appear to have been followed.”
The Scottish Government maintained that seals were better protected than they had ever been. According to returns from shooters, the number of seals shot had fallen from 459 in 2011 to 205 in 2014.
“Since 2011 it has been illegal in Scotland to shoot a seal except as a last resort under strict licensing conditions, and the number of seals shot under licence has more than halved,” said a government spokeswoman.
“It is an offence to breach any of the seal licence conditions. If members of the public observe someone shooting seals and are concerned that it may be illegal they should contact the local police who can investigate the circumstances.”
She added: “Our system strikes the balance between protecting seals and supporting our farmed and wild salmon industries. The vast majority of seals travel to feeding grounds at sea, however a few individuals repeatedly target migrating fish entering freshwater river fisheries and coastal nets, or attack stocks in fish farms.”
Licences were needed to control these specific seals “as a last resort measure after non-lethal alternatives have failed”, the spokeswoman said. “Regular monitoring ensures the scheme does not adversely affect seal conservation.”
My campaign to save the seals
by Rob Read, Chief Operations Officer, Sea Shepherd UK
Since the early April I have been staying in houses around Gamrie Bay in Aberdeenshire on the second year of Sea Shepherd UK’s seal defence campaign. Our fast Humber Destroyer patrol boat has been based in Gardenstown harbour.
This is the second year I have been campaigning to save Scotland’s seals on this particular coastline. I have also worked near Thurso and in the Orkney Islands during our campaign.
In 2014 after just two weeks of Sea Shepherd crew monitoring the activities of Usan Salmon Fisheries Ltd the company publicly stated they would not shoot any seals in Gamrie bay. But in 2015 no such promise was made.
Our campaign had two main aims - to prevent any illegal killing of seals and to monitor any allegedly legal shooting of seals under the permits issued by the government’s Marine Scotland.
The first eight weeks of this year’s campaign was uneventful as the company did not take a rifle out in the boat, as they did in early 2014, or make any attempt to shoot seals from the land. We did, though, discover and report several alleged fisheries offences and filmed an alleged wildlife crime incident.
On 25 May this relative peace changed when the skipper and crew of the Usan boat ‘Gamrie Lass’ took a rifle onto Crovie village pier - however no shots were fired. On 28 May two Usan employees appeared in Crovie and moved onto the cliffs at the north end followed by several Sea Shepherd volunteers.
Three shots were fired by the Usan marksman and sadly we found a grey seal dead in the adjoining rocky bay the next day. During the incident the Usan employee called the police reporting that “Sea Shepherd UK - environmental terrorists” were near them. Ironically just seconds later during the same phone call an Usan employee fired a shot at a seal.
On 2 June the Usan gunman and his three crew rushed down to Crovie and took position on the rocky headland, with Sea Shepherd crew armed only with video cameras. Two shots were soon fired by an Usan employee killing at least one small grey seal.
A short time later a third shot was fired along the coastline at an unseen target. Three more shots were fired and a large bloodstain quickly filled the sea as another seal died to protect a fishing company’s profits.
The incident provided the first clear video footage of fishermen shooting seals in Scotland. This is something we never wanted to film, but we knew could for the first time be shown to the public so that shot seals are more than just statistics on an obscure Scottish government web page.
Sea Shepherd’s campaign will continue as there is no government monitoring of seal killing by wild salmon netting companies around Scotland. As effective acoustic seal deterrents are now available for fishermen to use on nets, the cheap traditional option of bullets is no longer acceptable.
Afther Reading the stories above and already know that this was happening over the last view months. We have desided not to go on holliday to Scotland this year. Maybe we will next year but only when this stops. If not, were not going to Scotland in the future anymore.
Posted by: Herman lankwarden | 08 July 2015 at 07:32 PM
Sometime ago the BDMLR (British Divers Marine Life Rescue) commissioned Dr Sue Wilson a "proper seal Expert" to review all available data on Seal and Fishery Interactions.. Her report (still available as a download from the BDMLR website) is compelling evidence that strong seal populations produce strong fish stocks.. Seals are opportunists they don't just eat salmon exclusively, they eat a lot of other predator species that reduce the stocks of fish that other commercial fishermen want to catch.. So just like "gardeners" doing the weeding seals improve the strength of fish stocks. Its "over-fishing" that creates the issues not nature. Ask the Canadians about it because culling hundreds of thousands of seals still has "not" returned Cod Stocks to what they were.. No, its the fishing that need to be controlled, not nature's fragile food chains..
Its too simplistic to shoot seals just because they are near a net, the "netsman's defence" within the so called Protection of Seals Act is a crass excuse to carry out "culling" (which may be a contravention of EU Habitat Directives) because when you shoot a seal another will simply take its place and so on, and so on, so its an uncontrolled cull in disguise and especially if you are luring them to the nets with a big bag of food...
Dr Wilson and I successfully challenged an application for a shooter to shoot seals around his trawl in ESSEX, as far as I know the shooter who was backed by BASC lawyers never challenged the objections we raised, which was "inability" to identify species. Sometimes its very difficult for even experts to differentiate between harbour seals and grey seals which are protected at different times under the Act by way of Close Seasons. There have even been cases of "divers" black hoods bobbing up and being misidentified and shot at!
So Scotland's decision makers should start to use some "joined up" thinking on this issue and not simply rely on only one source of academia that is majorly funded from commercial interests in Scotland..
These companies need to invest in "nature" friendly methods because its not just seals that are being killed around these nets, they should not be allowed to simply destroy one part of natures complexity to benefit them when leaving nature alone actually benefits nature and other fishermen.
As a final point, the Devon and Cornwall Police Constabulary have conducted trial shooting with appropriate weapons by firearm's experts and found that there is "significant" risk to public in these shootings. None of the high powered ammunition manufacturers recommend the ammunitions use near open water. A deflected round from a weapon can travel very long distances and with lethal force. If I were on holiday there with my kids, I would not feel very safe with these guys "banging away" at the local wildlife.
There are so many things wrong with this activity, and Scotland should put a stop to it..
Bob Archell, former Trustee and Director BDMLR and co sponsor of Dr Sue Wilson's excellent Report on Seals and Fishery Interactions Problems and Solutions.
Posted by: Bob Archell | 29 June 2015 at 02:53 PM
I happened to be in Crovie on holiday in June and could see the confrontations taking place. I do support Sea Shepherd, but had no idea that the group would be there. USAN employees, sit in full view of the public, with rifle, ready to shoot seals. Crovie is a beautiful and unspoilt place, but this kind of behaviour from the fishermen is unpleasant and does little to encourage tourists to the area. Surely we wish to sell this beautiful country of ours on the basis of its glorious scenery and wildlife - without letting children witness a seal being shot in the head, and the bloodstained water. The ocean is the seals' environment, and they eat fish. How can anyone endorse such brutal behaviour?
Posted by: dorothy bothwell | 29 June 2015 at 11:07 AM
Many thanks, Suzanne.
Posted by: Rob Edwards | 29 June 2015 at 09:15 AM
Hello Rob; thanks for a balanced detailed piece. I went out with USAN once; it's true they don't talk to many journalists, but I wanted to see how it all works. Salmon, large, small, male, female, young, old are trapped in over 16 nets in the Montrose Basin; it's hard to believe any fish can make it past the nets at all. All are hauled up onto the boats, and as they are terrified and gasping for breath, they wait their turn to have their heads beaten with wooden sticks. Sometimes they don't die right away after that assault. I hadn't quite gone off fish before that day - I'll never touch another fish again, and am now vegetarian trying to go wholly vegan. USAN knows they are forbidden to shoot in Gardenstown/Crovie on land the laird owns, but they walk the town with rifles anyway. The wild salmon stock levels will not sustain this level of fishing in my opinion, even if there have been some no fish areas agreed this season. I've done my research on both sides - and concluded we are lucky Sea Shepherd is here. As to tourist trade, USAN operatives shot a seal in front of tourists in Gardenstown one year; the tourists unsurprisingly packed and left. Always enjoy your coverage.
Posted by: Suzanne Kelly, Aberdeen Voice contributor | 28 June 2015 at 05:48 PM