spoolin01
Contributor
I guess this depends on your perspective on hunting 'higher' mammals more generally, as I think you're right, from a sustainable population point of view, harbor seals and Cali sea lions along the CA coast are abundant. Most people in developed countries have a tendency to blanch at the idea of killing especially something with the intelligence of a seal, even for food. They can hunt their meat in the supermarket aisles and avoid unpleasant awareness of the killing. Pinnepeds are pests that cause a lot of noise, pollution, and damage in harbors up and down the coast, but aside from the inconvenience and cost in those settings, many people like having them around in numbers, I do. They must also take a lot of fish, but killing them just to limit that, even if you acknowledge the meat it would provide, will be opposed by most of the people who live along the coast. I support meat hunting generally - if you're going to eat meat you should own the process - and pinnipeds could be hunted without materially threatening the population.Should seals be hunted? I ask the question because it seems apparent to me that seals are no longer endangered--and they eat a lot of fish. In fact, I "always" see many of them each time I go diving. Besides the fact that they are cute, should they be protected if they have adaquet numbers? Maybe there should be a season to hunt them? Don't get me wrong, we can have no hunt seal zones combined with minimum lengths and aggregate catch limits.