A FISHERMAN'S VIEW.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 35, 2 June 1914, Page 4

A FISHERMAN'S VIEW.

A southern fisherman writes to the newspapers urging that seals should be classed with sharks and dogfish, in the list of creatures regarded as ocean nuisances, says the "Lyttelton Times." His contention is that the seal eats more fish than its skin is worth and that it should he declared a noxious animal and'its destruction encouraged. "Fish," he points out. "is the natural and only food of the seal, and any person having watched the process or feeding seals in captivity would naturally conclude that it would require a fair quantity of fish to keep them in condition." He comments upon the fact that a party of nun carrying on whaling operations at the Campbell Islands found as many as twentythree flounders, ranging from eleven

inches of twenty-three inches, in the stomach of a single seal. "Now," he declares in businesslike fashion, "if those fish had been in the possession of a retail merchant in Invereargill they would have been worth at least 30s. In my humble opinion there J should be no closed months for seals, I because their value as a commercial ! product does not in the slightest d< - | gree compensate the fishermen, and the Dominion as a whole for their wholesale consumption and destruction of our valuable food fishes." It is scarcely likely, however, that Professor Prince or Mr Ay son will take the same rather sordid view of the matter. The fur-seals or '.he southern coast and the outlying islands were only saved from complete extinction by Government protection. They are not n very numerous tribe even now,: and it seems rather absurd to hold] thorn responsible for "fisherman's j luck." There is surely plenty of fish in j the sen for the Foveaux Strait trailer, j even after giving the seal his scoro or t w u of Rounders a day. j