Frequent visitor to the retail fish shop situated in the ice plant on Dun Laoghaire's Traders Wharf, writes our friend Arthur Reynolds, is - a large grey seal. The animal attracts small crowds who buy fish in the shop and drop it down to the ever-welcoming mouth. One man buys fish to feed his pet, if you like, mostly mackerel and whiting. He has found that the seal will not eat herrings, even though herrings seemed to be the staple diet of the seals in Dublin Zoo. Heads and fillet remains are conveniently disposed of by the shop through the whiskery maw. While the seal has a lot of admirers, one person, who wishes it all the worst things that can happen to seals, is Arthur, long-time expert in the fishing industry around our coasts, who knows what effect seals can have on small fishing communities, as he puts it, particularly on our west and north-west coasts.
He says that studies have shown - this will surprise many - that some 20,000 come over from Scotland to Ireland seasonally and ravage our stocks. They even gather at the mouth of harbours to follow the boats out to where their nets are set and take bites out of the trapped fish. Salmon seem, he says, to be a favourite with them. It is estimated by Arthur, the former owner and editor of the trade journal The Skipper, and former Director of Bord Iascaigh Mhara that one can destroy 400lbs weight of fish a week. A few years ago a State-sponsored study was commissioned to look into the effects of seal population on Irish fisheries but was never published. He says that this is because the subject is a political "hot potato", for pet lovers only think of the sad eyes and lonely cold life that the animal endures in its present watery environment - for, he says, the seal was originally a land animal. Cod worms or nematodes, he adds, gestate in the digestive system of seals and are spread to fish near their colonies.
He wants the Government to grasp the nettle. "In the mean time," he ends his letter, "Dun Laoghaire's seal swims under the false impression that it has no enemies among the two-legged land mammals that provide its breakfast, dinner and tea." Arthur had better watch out after this, if any of those seal-lovers know him to see.