In the News
Consortium organizes to study seal impacts
Commercial Fisheries News - March 2013 (Download PDF)
Forecast for Cape seals: Lots of gray
Cape Cod Times - March 24, 2013 -- CHATHAM — On a recent fishing trip around Monomoy Island, Orleans fisherman Bill Amaru and his crew counted 4,000 gray seals that had hauled out on the island's sandy beaches. "The seals were 15 to 20 deep in three separate haul-outs," Amaru told an audience of more than 240 people at a daylong... (read more...)
California beach-goers learn to live with great whites
Cape Cod Times - March 17, 2013 -- SURF BEACH, Calif. — Despite its name, this is not a beach that would inspire a song. Visitors, mostly hard-core surfers, park in a commuter train lot, cross the tracks and walk through a gap in a chain-link fence to get to the ash-colored sand and the waves beyond. There's no bathhouse, no lifeguards. (Read more...)
Scientists hope to help seals and humans better coexist
Boston Globe Dec. 28, 2012 - In the past five years, New England’s growing seal population has been blamed for luring great white sharks to Cape Cod beaches. Fishermen complain they have to compete against the marine mammals’ insatiable appetite for a dwindling number of fish. The relationship between seals and humans has grown so tense that five adult seals were shot in the head last year.
Now comes a broad-based effort to study one of the most common and mysterious animals off New England’s coast and help resolve human-seal conflicts. Read more...
Study: Don't Blame the Seals
Cape Cod Times - Dec. 21, 2012 -- Water quality on beaches close to where large groups of gray seals congregate has not declined in the nearly 10 years the state has been analyzing and collecting water samples, according to a report released this week by scientists with the Northeast Seal Consortium.
The consortium, which includes scientists and fishermen among others, conducts research on various aspects of the Cape's rapidly growing seal population, including human interactions. Read more...
Cape Cod towns seek grant for shark awareness
Boston Globe - Dec. 11, 2012 -- Now a protected species, the gray seal population has exploded on the Cape and Islands during the past four years. And where there are seals, there are seal predators, most famously, the great white shark. Last summer marked one of the busiest seasons for great white sightings in the region, with the first shark attack on a human in Massachusetts since 1936. Read more...
Consortium to Address Seal Issues in Northeast
CapeCodToday - Nov. 2, 2012 -- People come from miles away to see the seals off the shores of Cape Cod and surrounding regions, but the animals are creating some challenges for local fishermen. Recent increases in local seal abundance have led to concerns about fisheries interactions. The urgency of documenting, understanding, and mitigating these interactions has become more apparent. Read more...
Seals/fisheries workshop fosters common ground
Commercial Fisheries News - September 2012. Article by Owen Nichols (Download PDF )
