UK Common Seal Numbers Drop By 1/3 - Call To Reset Shooting Ban

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Conservationists have called for an outright ban on shooting common seals in the UK after scientists discovered their numbers have fallen by more than a third in the past decade.

The Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU), which carried out a helicopter survey of moulting seals last week, said Shetland's population of common seals has dropped from more than 6,000 in 1997 to fewer than 4,000. Campaigners said the figures demonstrated the need to reintroduce a year-round ban on shooting common seals in Shetland. It was scrapped in 1998 by the Labour government.

The islands' fish farming and fishing industry vehemently denied responsibility for the drop in numbers, though evidence of seal traps being deliberately set around fish cages has been uncovered in the past two years. Scottish Natural Heritage described the figures as "pretty alarming" and called for surveys to be stepped up to discover if they were "a trend or a blip".

The shooting of common seals was banned in the Shetland Isles in 1973 after numbers fell to 1,750 owing to hunting for seal pelts. Afterwards, the SMRU's five-yearly surveys showed an increase until the population appeared to stabilise in 1996 at around 6,000.

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