Thanks - So would the fisherman be paid by who for seal bounties? I’m not worried there are plenty of seals around - if they’re smart they’d go somewhere else.
“Thanks - So would the fisherman be paid by who for seal bounties? I’m not worried there are plenty of seals around - if they’re smart they’d go somewhere else.”
As I remember in Boston as a kid, the bounty was $5 per dead seal If you brought in a seals nose.
Town clerks throughout Maine and Mass. payed the bounties.
There is an exhaustive article on this subject at:
https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=bio-faculty
Here is the conclusion:
.
Conclusions
We have compiled records of 40,251 seal bounties paid in Maine and
Massachusetts between 1888 and 1962. These records probably represent
between 72,284 and 135,498 seals actually killed as part of the bounty hunt, numbers that may have had a substantial impact on seal populations in the
Gulf of Maine.
We have also found that larger numbers of bounties were paid in areas that had more seals and higher human population. To the extent that the purpose of seal bounties was to reduce the number of animals where the
population is largest and where conflicts between seals and humans (primarily fishers) are most likely, it could be argued that the seal bounties were successful at achieving their objective.
However, it is also true that fishers
2009 B. Lelli, D.E. Harris, and A-M. Aboueissa 251
never ceased complaining about the impact of seals on their livelihood, no matter how low the seal population fell (Conkling 1999, Seal Damage...
1947) and that the bounties were repealed because the costs (including the
perceived negative impact on tourism as well as animal welfare and conservation concerns) were felt to outweigh the benefits (Lelli and Harris 2006)