Science writer Alix Morris unabashedly delights in seals, which she calls “blubbery blobs,” comparing them to dogs in their ability to elicit human compassion. Successful conservation efforts have brought a number of species back from the brink of extinction, and now their populations are thriving. But not everyone loves the pinnipeds. Seals are commonly blamed for depleting fish stocks and for attracting sharks to popular tourist beaches.
In “A Year With the Seals,” Morris takes a commendably evenhanded approach to the debates. The engaging book covers Morris’ year of research, season by season. In the winter she visits Seal Island, off the coast of Maine, and Sable Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia. There she observes the animals mating – a surprisingly ruthless competition as a result of males greatly outnumbering the females. She spends the summer in Cape Cod, off the coast of Massachusetts, where in 2018 a 26-year-old bodyboarder named Arthur Medici was killed by a shark. Because sharks prey on seals, his death lent urgency to the question of how to handle the growing numbers of seals on shores.
Morris also traces the long history of seals in North American waters, citing their importance to Native American diets going back centuries. By the late 1800s, however, fishermen were, in the author’s words, “increasingly frustrated with seals and their appetite for high-value fish” like cod, herring, and mackerel. Seals were often shot on sight. In response to pressure (and to the consternation of conservationists), Maine and Massachusetts began offering cash bounties to seal hunters to control the populations.
Why We Wrote This
It is good news when a species is brought back from the brink of extinction. But sometimes conservation success stories have downsides. In the case of seals, the impression that an increased population is attracting sharks to beaches and decimating fish stocks has led to calls for tighter management of their numbers.
As a result, the number of seals plummeted precipitously. The trend was reversed with the 1972 passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which largely prohibits the hunting, killing, or capture of any marine mammal, including seals, whales, dolphins, and sea lions. In recent decades, as the seals have returned, so, too, have the familiar conflicts with humans, leading the author to ask, “What happens if the laws and policies we enact to protect species – to undo centuries of human exploitation – work too well?”
Morris comes to understand the perspective of different stakeholders. During a visit to Washington state, she visits Ramona Bennett, an elder of the Puyallup Tribe, for whom salmon is an important resource. In response to diminishing stocks, the tribe has attempted to raise salmon in a protected hatchery before releasing the fish into the Puyallup River. But the seals have caught on, waiting at the mouth of the river and consuming the fish as they’re released. “We’re raising seal food,” Bennett says.
The author also gets to know the small, devoted staff of the Marine Mammals of Maine, a nonprofit founded in 2011. The group operates a hospital for wounded and stranded seals, nursing them to health before releasing them back into the ocean. During her time with scientists who study the animals, Morris learns that there’s much we still don’t understand about seals, particularly in regard to their underwater lives.
For instance, while it is known that seals eat cod, they also prey on fish – including hake – that consume cod eggs and juvenile cod. In other words, Morris writes, seals “may be helping to control the predators of cod.” Amid calls from some quarters to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act and once again control the seal population, the author argues for gathering more data. She asks, “How could wildlife managers in the U.S. weigh the risks and benefits of culling seals, if faced with that decision, without understanding how their removal might influence other species and their habitat?”
Morris concludes that seals have become easy scapegoats. She cites evidence that industrial fishing practices have done more to deplete fish populations than seals. She also notes the role of warming oceans, due to climate change, in diminishing fish stocks. In other words, humans have some culpability in the problems blamed on seals. Meanwhile, contrary to popular perception, the seal population isn’t “exploding”: Cynthia Wigren, a co-founder of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, tells the author that it’s in fact “a recovering population coming back to its historic range.”
Still, despite the nuances that Morris deftly outlines, she acknowledges that seals do prey on cod and salmon and the like, and they do draw sharks to beaches. She notes that, unlike some of the people she meets during her work on the book, her livelihood and recreational activities haven’t been adversely impacted by seals. In the end, there are no easy answers, but Morris asks the right questions.
