August 27, 2013 — In the late 1970s, only a few seals hung around Nantucket, and only in the winter. But in the last decade, their numbers have exploded. An aerial count by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of Southeastern Massachusetts haul-out sites and sandbars counted 15,756 in March 2011. That does not include seals in the water, according to NOAA, which says their numbers are still rising.
Muskeget Island, just west of Nantucket and Tuckernuck Island, now has the largest gray seal breeding colony in the United States.
Big Kenny Tin Squid yearns for the good ol’ days.
“We used to do very well up here with the bass and bluefish,” he says. “Then about 10 years ago they started the closures on the beaches. My haunt — the rip at Great Point — was taken away from me.’’
The Great Point rip, the holy land for surfcasters, is almost always closed to everyone except boaters. If it’s not because of the newly hatched piping plover chicks, it’s the seals, which require a 150-foot protection zone. Right now, with the seals having gone fishing in cooler waters, it’s the endangered roseate terns who are staging for their annual trip to the Caribbean.
“What about us?” says Big Kenny. “If a species is endangered, it’s one thing, but you have to make some sort of allowance for people.”
Big Kenny says he is not as angry as some other fishermen. In 2011, five seals were shot dead on Cape Cod. There are whispers that it could happen again.
Read the full story at the Boston Globe