289 



Now, what I want to know is what do the scientists and the experts 

 have to say about the need for control, or what would happen if we 

 let it return to the whims of nature, if we did not have this program 

 going. 



I do not want to take your time. It is late. But I thought, perhaps, 

 Mr. Pollock, you could get some statements together from what our 

 scientists or experts believe in this regard. 



Mr. Pollock. I am looking, Mr. Pelly. 



Mr. Pelly. On the floor, someone may want to eliminate the whole 

 program, and I would like to know whether it would be a good thing 

 or bad tiling for you who have studied the matter, what you scientists 

 think. 



Mr. Pollock. Mr. Pelly, I am looking for a paper that might give 

 part of a quick answer. 



Mr. Pelly. I would just as soon not have a quick answer. I would 

 like an authoritative answer, and would like it supplied for the record. 



Mr. Pollock. The thing I would point out, and I do not see the 

 document here, is that the English have a very serious problem with 

 the herds where they have not made conservation harvests on their 

 seals, and they are very overpopulated with many, many pups. And 

 many of the adults have been dying from disease, and they are now 

 embarking on a program of making a very serious cut in the total 

 population. 



I do not find that particular document. 



Mr. DiNGELL. You are referring to an article that appeared in the 

 Daily Telegraph on the killing of 3,000 seals? 



Mr. Pollock. Yes. 



Mr. DiNGELL. Without objection, the Chair will insert that in the 

 record. 



(The information follows :) 



[The Daily Telegraph (London, England) Tuesday, Aug. 17, 1971] 



National Tkust Will Kill 3,000 Seals on Fabne Islands 



(By Clare Dover, Science Staff) 



Three thousand grey seal calves and their mothers are to be killed over the 

 next three years on the Fame Islands, off the North-East coast, the National 

 Trust has announced. 



The culling will start in the autumn of next year. 



The decision has been made reluctantly because the seals are overcrowded 

 and living in "squalor." 



Seal calves become lost in the crowd and die of malnutrition, and adult seals 

 have become aggressive. 



The shooting, which will take place during the next breeding season, will reduce 

 the seal colony to half its present size of 7,000. The seals will be shot through 

 the head with high-powered rifles. 



STARVED TO DEATH 



The colony has been investigated by Mr. Nigel Bonner, of the Seals Research 

 Unit of the Natural Environment Research Council, and Mrs. Grace Hickling, 

 of the Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle-upon Tyne Natural History 

 Society. 



They say that 21 per cent of last year's Fame Islands seal calves died, largely 

 because they lost contact with their mothers and starved to death. The calves 

 could not obtain milk, which forms their only food for the first few weeks of 

 life. 



"The general picture now presented by the breeding grounds on the Fame 

 Islands at the height of the season is one of squalor. The carcasses of dead calves 

 lie scattered on the mud and starving calves, many of them covered in purulent 

 wounds inflicted by aggressive cows, lie moribund or suck weakly at each other. 



