Seal Of Approval

The grey seal has made a spectacular recovery from near extinction but there are now 120,000 of them — which may prove unsustainable

- Lindsay Waddell

From teetering on the brink of extinction with a population of only around 500 at the turn of the 20th century, the grey seal, Halichoerus grypus, has made a spectacular recovery and numbers are now approaching 120,000.

Scotland hosts around 90 per cent of those, with the remainder scattered around our coastline, especially the eastern, more sheltered coast. Though that number seems massive by historical standards we do play host to around 40 per cent of the world’s population of these animals.

There is no doubt that by giving the seal protection in the latter half of the last century by removing man as the apex predator, we gave it the chance to recover to numbers we have never seen in modern times.

Persecuted as a fish-eating mammal — as well as a source of skin, oil and meat — the seal has been hunted by man for many thousands of years and, importantly to the indigenous peoples, it was sustainable. But as often happened, when industrialization came into play, the numbers culled were simply too great and, as with a variety of other species, we nearly wiped them off the face of the earth.

Excesses