Status
In the United States grey seal numbers are increasing rapidly. Up until 1962, Maine and Massachusetts had bounties on seals so that only a few isolated colonies of grey seals remained in Maine. Then in 1972 Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act that prevented harming or harassing seals, and grey seal populations rebounded. For example there is a large breeding colony near Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where pups rebounded from a handful in 1980 to more than 2,000 in 2008. By 2009, thousands of grey seals there had taken up residence on or near popular swimming beaches when Great White Sharks started hunting them close to shore. Also grey seals are seen increasingly in New York and New Jersey waters, and it's expected that they will establish colonies further south.
In the UK seals are protected under the Conservation of Seals Act 1970, however it does not apply to Northern Ireland. In the UK there have also been calls for a cull from some fishermen, claiming that stocks have declined due to the seals.
The population in the Baltic Sea has increased about 8% per year between 1990 and the mid-2000s with the numbers becoming stagnant since 2005. As of 2011 hunting grey seals is legal in Sweden and Finland with 50% of the quota being used. Other anthropogenic causes of death include the drowning in fishing gear.
Read more about this topic: Grey Seal
Famous quotes containing the word status:
“At all events, as she, Ulster, cannot have the status quo, nothing remains for her but complete union or the most extreme form of Home Rule; that is, separation from both England and Ireland.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Recent studies that have investigated maternal satisfaction have found this to be a better prediction of mother-child interaction than work status alone. More important for the overall quality of interaction with their children than simply whether the mother works or not, these studies suggest, is how satisfied the mother is with her role as worker or homemaker. Satisfied women are consistently more warm, involved, playful, stimulating and effective with their children than unsatisfied women.”
—Alison Clarke-Stewart (20th century)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)