Condemnation aroused by the grim discovery last month that six seals had been shot dead along Cape Cod beaches has reached Washington.
During a visit to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution today, U.S. Sen. Scott Brown plans to announce legislation that would more than double penalties for such intentional violations of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
"I think it was just a heinous act," Brown said of the seal shootings during an interview Thursday. "Had this not happened, we probably wouldn't be talking" about the issue.
The Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed in 1972 in response to dwindling populations of several marine mammal species and the growing concern that human contact was the culprit. The federal law prohibits people from hunting, harassing, capturing or killing whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, seal lions and other marine mammals.
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