Protected Chilean sea lions are the 'enemy' of fishermen

Yahoo – AFP, Miguel SANCHEZ, December 22, 2018

Chilean fishermen have branded sea lions "a plague" because of the competition
they provide in catching fish (AFP Photo/Martin BERNETTI)

Valparaíso (Chile) (AFP) - Off the coast of Chile, fisherman face competition from a cunning carnivorous hunter that has decimated their industry due to its voracious appetite.

For Chile's fishermen, sea lions are a "plague."

"They're an enemy!" complained Mario Rojas to AFP. "We try to make them go away but it's impossible!"

Part of the wider seal family that was once hunted mercilessly all over the world, leaving some populations close to extinction, the South American sea lion in Chile has been protected for the last 28 years.

Hunting them for their richly prized fur is illegal.

Liberated from their most dangerous predator -- they are still prey for sharks and orcas -- the sea mammal's population has been on the rise, helped in no small part by the abundant fodder they manage to steal from fisherman.

Sea lions hang around on the beach or under the wharf at San Antonio port waiting for 

fishermen to discard the scraps and entrails from their catches (AFP Photo/

MARTIN BERNETTI)

They have learnt to distinguish the sound of the fishing boats' motors, allowing them to follow the vessels as they head out to sea.

"The sea lions don't hunt anymore. They hear the noise of a boat and they know that the food is there," said Rojas.

With their sharp teeth and the enormous power in bodies that can weigh around 650 pounds (300 kilograms), they manage to destroy the fishing nets and gobble up the treats inside.

And they have some appetite, consuming 90 pounds of fish each a day.

Rojas says more than 80 percent of the boats working in his area, around the port of Valparaiso, return from a day's work empty, with their nets shredded.

There, sea lions hang around on the beach or beneath the wharf, waiting for the scraps and entrails thrown back into the water by fishermen.

Around 40 percent of the world's sea lion population, some 200,000 animals, live off the coast of Chile and pose a serious threat to the fishing industry.

Local fishermen want to be able to cull their numbers.

Not everyone is as angered by sea lions as Chile's fishermen, and the country's

 fisheries under-secretary Eduardo Riquelme says humans must learn to live 

with the eared seals (AFP Photo/MARTIN BERNETTI)

'A crisis'

A decade ago, at the Portales cove at Valparaiso, where Rojas is the fishermen's leader, around 1,300 pounds of fish were caught daily, but that is now down to just 110 pounds.

It's a similar situation all along the coast.

"We're going through a crisis specifically because of sea lions, but we also have fishing quotas. People are desperate," said Jose Alvarado, leader of the fishermen at Hualaihue, around 700 miles (1,000 kilometers) to the south of the capital Santiago.

Fishermen want the ban on sea lion hunting lifted so they can control the numbers.

"The only viable solution for the fishermen is to eliminate the sea lions and this won't happen," fisheries under-secretary Eduardo Riquelme told AFP.

He admits that sea lions are creating problems for the fishing industry but the first step in addressing the issue will come in February with a census to establish the size of the Chilean population of these eared seals.

The government has also agreed with fishermen to convene a commission of experts to study the problem, while also eradicating some of the fishermen's bad habits, such as throwing fish entrails, which sea lions feed on, back into the sea.

With a ban on hunting them, the South American sea lions have almost no 

predators now and compete with humans for fish (AFP Photo/Martin BERNETTI)

They've agreed to begin tests on boats fitted with ultrasound equipment to scare away sea lions, and machines that will reel in nets quicker.

'Catastrophic problems'

The hunting ban was imposed to preserve the South American sea lion, after two closely related fur seal species were almost driven extinct during the 20th century.

Chile has signed international accords to protect the sea lion and any violation would engender serious penalties, such as the suspension of salmon imports from the United States, an industry that generates almost $4 billion a year.

The predator's presence is necessary "to balance food chains," Jose Luis Brito, director at San Antonio's natural history museum, told AFP.

Hunting by humans "can produce catastrophic problems with huge consequences, because they are the ones that control life," said Brito.

But, "since they don't have any rivals, and not enough predators," their numbers are on the rise, "provoking them to compete with another predator, which is us."

For Riquelme, there's only one solution: "We have to learn to live with the sea lions."

Ouch! Sea lions attack swimmers in San Francisco Bay

Yahoo – AFP, December 16, 2017

Experts say attacks by sea lions and other marine mammals in San Francisco
Bay are rare but not unheard of (AFP Photo/Ina Fassbender)

Washington (AFP) - Hearty souls that brave the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay for a morning dip have a new reason to shiver: attacks by sea lions, including one that nearly netted a guy's genitals.

A cove known as Aquatic Park has been closed to swimmers for a few days by the National Park Service because of three attacks in just a week. Such attacks are rare but not unheard of.

A man named Rick Mulvihill suffered a severe bite Friday morning and was hospitalized, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, quoting the fire department.

Mulvihill belongs to a club whose members take early morning swims in waters with an average temperature in December of about 53 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius).

"It hit him right here, close to the family jewels," said fellow club member Bob Roper, 79, pointing at the inside of his upper thigh.

"I've been here 50 years and I've never heard of anything like this," Roper told the Chronicle. "You have a lot of very, very nervous swimmers now and I don't blame them."

All the attacks might be by the same animal, which could be a sea lion or a harbor seal, said Claire Simeone, a veterinarian.

Super-Trawler Cleared to Fish in Australian Waters

Jakarta Globe, September 04, 2012

This handout file photograph taken on August 30, 2012 and provided by Greenpeace
 shows activists on an inflatable boat (below) intercepting the world's second largest
 factory fishing trawler, the FV Margiris, blocking the monster ships attempt to enter
 Port Lincoln in South Australia on August 30, 2012. A huge Dutch super-trawler was
 on September 4, 2012 given the go-ahead to fish in Australian waters but with tough
conditions to minimize by-catch such as dolphins, seals and sea lions. (AFP Photo)

               

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A huge Dutch super-trawler was Tuesday given the go-ahead to fish in Australian waters but with tough conditions to minimize by-catch such as dolphins, seals and sea lions.

The 9,500-ton FV Margiris repelled Greenpeace protesters to dock at Port Lincoln in South Australia last Thursday for re-flagging as an Australian vessel before its proposed deployment to Tasmania for bait-fishing.

Environment Minister Tony Burke sought legal advice about whether he could intervene over concerns that dolphins and other marine life would inadvertently get swept up in its huge nets.

But he said he had been told he does not have the power to block it fishing in Australian waters.

“Under national environmental law I don’t have the power to block it altogether,” he told ABC television, but said the trawler’s operators would have to prove they were doing everything necessary to minimize by-catch.

“What I do have is the legal power to impose a number of restrictions on it based on the impact it can have, not on the fish that it’s targeting, but on the by-catch — the seals, the dolphins, the fish that are protected and listed and I have responsibility for,” Burke said.

“The big vessel will have to fish within the rules so that the impact it has on the environment is no more than if it was fishing on a small vessel,” he added.

Under conditions imposed by the government, fishing will have to be suspended if a dolphin dies in the ship’s nets or if three or more seals perish. It will also be banned from sea lion hunting grounds.

The trawler will also be required to have an observer on board and to record its activities on an underwater camera.

The 143-meter (469-foot) Margiris sparked protests among conservation groups and local fishermen when it was announced earlier this year that it would fish off Tasmania.

The Tasmanian businessman behind the Margiris venture said the restrictions were acceptable, and workable.

“I think what he’s suggesting sounds reasonable, and we’ll certainly study those conditions very closely,” Seafish Tasmania director Gerry Geen told the broadcaster.

“But on the face of it I think that they’re the sort of measures that will help us to reduce by-catch down to a very low level and we’ll be very pleased to go along with them.”

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority has dismissed concerns about over-fishing, saying the trawler would be allowed to catch just 10 percent of available fish and would have little if any impact on the broader eco-system.

Agence France-Presse

Dutch seal shelter to open in Canada

RNW, 26 March 2011

A Dutch seal shelter is to open a second a second facility in Canada hoping to sway public opinion to ban seal hunts completely.

The shelter, based in the northern province of Groningen, will open the facility in Nova Scotia. It set up its first facility in Canada three years ago. A Canadian volunteer is currently being trained in the Netherlands.

The news comes on the same day that the Canadian authorities set the quota of seals to be killed this year at nearly 500,000, a 20 percent increase over last year. Since 2007, annual quotas have risen every year.

Hunted for their fur and meat, most seals are clubbed to death. Worldwide, some 900,000 seals are killed every year, more than half of them in Canada.

Earlier this month, Lenie 't Hart, who founded the Groningen seal shelter 40 years ago, announced she was retiring.

Related Article:

Canada increases seal hunt quota

Seal hunters kill a seal

EU seal pelts import ban dispute goes to WTO court

Canada's seal ban appeal goes to WTO panel

Canada, which has argued that its annual seal hunt
is conducted humanely, is challenging the European
Union's ban on the import of seal products. A WTO
dispute panel will be assembled to hear the case.
((Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press))

Mystery as ‘corkscrew’ kills Scottish seals

Daily Mail, By MAIL ON SUNDAY REPORTER, 15th August 2010

Dozens of seals are dying from unexplained ‘corkscrew’ injuries, prompting the launch of a Scottish Government investigation.

Seven incidents involving common and grey seals, such as the one pictured below, were reported in the past two months alone in St Andrews Bay and the Firth of Forth, Scottish officials said.

Carcasses washed ashore showing a single, smooth-edged cut starting at the head and spiralling around the body. Experts do not believe the injuries were caused by fishing nets or boat propellers.

'Strange deaths': Seven incidents involving common and grey seals were reported in Scotland in the last two months

Environment Minister Richard Lochhead said: ‘It’s critical that we establish the cause of these strange deaths and do all we can to protect our seal populations, particularly as numbers have reduced in recent years. I would encourage anyone who encounters a seal carcass to contact the Sea Mammal Research Unit.’

In total, 33 seals have washed up along the east coast of England and Scotland, including six in St Andrews Bay and the Firth of Forth in 2008 and 2009.

Similar incidents have been reported in Norfolk and off the Canadian coast.

Mr Lochhead has asked scientists from the University of St Andrews to investigate.

Related Article:

Is ocean life being wiped out?

Missing San Francisco sea lions 'off Oregon'

BBC News

Just a year ago Pier 39 was home to hundreds of sea lions

Scientists in the US believe they may have solved the riddle of San Francisco's vanishing sea lions.

The Californian city's famous colony of sea lions all but disappeared over the past month, baffling experts.

But now large numbers of the animals have been spotted further north, off the coast of Oregon.

Scientists say the animals have probably migrated in search of food during the winter, although in unusually high numbers.

The sea lions of San Francisco are almost as famous as the city's cable cars or even the Golden Gate bridge, says the BBC's Peter Bowes in Los Angeles.

Twenty years ago, for no apparent reason, the smelly, noisy animals took up residence in the docks at Pier 39.

Their numbers grew rapidly to about 1,700 animals, and they became a popular tourist attraction.

But then most of them disappeared.

Initially, marine experts were baffled.

One outlandish suggestion was that they were fleeing the bay because of an imminent earthquake, our correspondent says.

But now the sighting of large numbers of sea lions off the coast of Oregon may have solved the mystery.

Scientists says it is normal for the animals to move north in search of food during the winter but it is extremely unusual for them to migrate in such huge numbers.

(Photo: Peter Arnold - Dec 2009)