I Had a call from a student at Plymouth university, I was asked a series of questions on seals around the UK.
To my suprise I knew or was getting close to some of the statistics that she was putting to me, what is the size of the population? and the percentage of each breed of seal, common or grey made up around our coast?. Then she asked if I thought that the size of the population, which has increased by nearly 100,000 in the last 20years was a problem.

This is a tough question to be asked and I know is a very emotive issue,but in our method of fishing we do not loose fish to the seals, but there are many fisherman who use static nets that have huge losses of fish to the seals, and i am sure they would like to see something done about the problems they face.



One cheeky chap looking for a meal.




But i have to admit that in recent years we are seeing the seals further offshore and more regularly so they must be more plentiful.
The fishing for us has improved in recent years but we may target species that the seals do not, but how big should the population get and if its to large and is competing alongside man how many is too many?

So she asked me my opinion, my answer was that it had to be scientificaly led and if something had to be done, it has to be done humanely.









So I wish her well with her survey, she sure has picked a tough topic to raise, but good on her for raising with it, and for aproaching it with a balanced veiw and asking the right people of their veiws.

So enough of the polotics for know and back to the fishing, the boat landed this evening with a really big trip for 6days fishing, they ran out of boxes this time, but still had a bit of ice left  thankfully. There was a good run of whittens amongst the catch as well as some monks, lemons, cuttles, haddocks and even 20boxes of squid.





Plenty of fine evenings unusual for january.





The boat has been on the go for 10days now so we are stopping tomorrow to do a few repairs and hopefully we will sail early saturday. so lets hope the fishing keeps up and the weather for know.