Madam, - What would farmers, or indeed anybody in the food business, say if the Government was to give €2 million towards anything to do with a rat sanctuary? Well, our inshore fishermen had to be shocked when you reported on February 26th that that amount was to go to a marine conservation and education centre to be located at the seal sanctuary in North Dublin.
While our larger fishing craft are being continually harassed by foreign vessels in offshore waters, our inshore fishermen suffer severely from depredation by seal colonies, strengthened by an annual invasion of thousands of seals from Scotland.
Norway has asked Scotland to extend its local seal culls to all its coasts, where it is responsibly calculated that seals destroy more than 200,000 tonnes of fish annually. There, 80 per cent of the stomach contents of 24 seals studied was salmon gut, not flesh.
Irish marine biologists are well aware of the toll on our fish stocks from seals, but remain silent. Indeed, Government-financed research has revealed the alarming scale of damage, but the need for a humane national cull remains ignored. - Yours, etc.,
ARTHUR REYNOLDS, Blackrock, Co Dublin.