Once again, coastal waters getting seals’ approval
Beachgoers delight, but a bane to fishermen
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | October 3, 2009
TRURO - Gray heads began popping out of the sea shortly before low tide Wednesday. Soulful, steady eyes looked briefly at the handful of people armed with binoculars and cameras on the Cape Cod National Seashore, then disappeared silently beneath the waves.
Suddenly, dozens of 300- to 600-pound bulbous gray seals awkwardly lumbered onto an exposed sandbar, joining others already there. Within the hour, more than 100 were lolling and playfully slapping one another with their flippers at the newest, and one of the most publicly accessible, seal resting sites on Cape Cod. Some low tides, more than 300 animals “haul out’’ here.
Gray seals, once so hunted they all but disappeared from Northeast waters, are making a comeback off New England to both public delight and damnation. This summer, they were the bait blamed for luring great white sharks so close to Cape Cod’s swimming beaches that some had to be closed. Fishermen complain the seals eat too many valuable fish.
Meanwhile, overzealous visitors are inadvertently stressing seals, by getting too close and leaving everything from calamari strips to Twinkies for the resting animals.
“It is going to be a balancing act. People are going to have to adapt their ways to dealing with a year-round population of seals,’’ said Gordon Waring, a fishery biologist and seal specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries agency in Woods Hole. “There may be more seals in areas people felt traditionally they had a right to use.’’
Scientists do not know how many gray seals reside in Massachusetts waters year-round and how many are seasonal visitors: The creatures can travel hundreds of miles a day and may not stick close to where they were born. It’s clear, however, that the number of native seals is increasing. In the early 1980s, only a handful of gray seal pups were seen on MuskegetIsland off the western tip of Nantucket, their primary breeding colony off Massachusetts. Last year, more than 2,000 were seen.
Once, seals were considered such marine pests that Maine and Massachusetts placed bounties on them. BayState hunters could get as much as $5 per seal - in exchange for a seal nose and the animals’ skin - for most of the period between 1888 and 1962, according to a paper published in Northeastern Naturalist this year. The paper, written by Barbara Lelli, David E. Harris, and Abou El-Makarim Aboueissa, estimated that 72,000 to 135,000 seals were probably killed in the two states’ bounty hunts.
In 1972, however, the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act made it a crime to injure or harass seals and other marine mammals in US waters. The law has been so successful in some places that growing marine mammal populations are sparking human protests. In Washington and Oregon, a growing population of sea lions is being blamed for eating too many endangered salmon. In La Jolla, Calif., some residents have waged a two-decade legal fight to evict a seal colony from a once-popular swimming area.
The battles have never gotten as acrimonious in New England, but fishermen complain bitterly that seal populations are being allowed to grow unchecked.
“We have thousands of them in the water; they are decimating the fish,’’ said Joe Fitzback, a charter boat captain out of Chatham who also runs the Cape Cod Charter Association. He says their fecal matter pollutes the water near a haul-out site in Chatham.
With scant information on the number of seals that lived in area waters prior to bounties, scientists say they can’t answer an incessant question they get from fishermen and the public: How many seals are enough?
“We don’t have a target number,’’ said Waring, who studies gray seals’ range, diet, and interactions with smaller harbor seals. He said there are hints that a large gray seal population has leveled out around Canada’s SableIsland, and he said the same may naturally happen here once the animals fully recolonize.
Biologists say gray seals, which can grow up to 8 feet long and weigh 900 pounds, probably are attracting some great white sharks. Seals are known to be a shark delicacy, and no other seal population is present in the summer.
Since seals spend most of their time in the water, scientists rely on haul outs to observe and count them. Lisa Sette, a biologist with the ProvincetownCenter for Coastal Studies, is studying several of Cape Cod’s haul-out sites - including Truro’s - to understand how seal populations change seasonally and over time. She counts animals, takes photographs to build a database, notes their location, and on occasion, identifies some, including by scars, markings on their coat, or marine gear they became entangled in. No one knows why seals choose a particular haul-out site, although researchers suspect it has to do with distance from people and boats, easy access to land, and abundant nearby food. Still, many seemingly perfect haul-out sites never have a seal, and anyone who has been to ChathamHarbor knows that those hauled-out seals don’t mind all the people. A haul-out community can last a season, or for years.
While individual or small groups of seals have hauled out in the Truro area for years, it began “evolving’’ as a haul-out community three years ago with about 60 to 80 seals, Sette said. The animals come most days, but not every one - high winds and foul weather appear to keep them in the water. If people get too close, they leave.
On Wednesday, under blue skies and slight winds, beachgoers who made the quarter-mile trek to see the seals respectfully stood behind string tied to stakes placed by National Seashore staff. Signs warned them not to get too close. Federal officials say people should stay at least 50 yards from any seal.
“[My wife] wanted to see seals more than whales,’’ said a delighted Paul Adams of Flint, Mich. He and his wife, Kathy, heard about the seals and walked out Tuesday, only to learn low tide was the time to come. On Wednesday, they came with beach chairs and binoculars.
“Seals are still tied to the land and that is what really makes them unique,’’ said Sette. “It’s what makes them so fun to study.’’
Beth Daley can be reached at .