Saboteurs halt Angus salmon company’s seal cull action

An Angus wild salmon company said it will continue “lethal seal management” despite action by saboteurs.

George Pullar, director of the Scottish Wild Salmon fishery at Usan near Montrose, said his company’s latest efforts to shoot seals were the same as a farmer protecting his lambs from a fox.

He was responding to Sea Shepherd UK’s intervention this week on the Moray coast.

The presence of the charity’s camera crew deterred a Usan team from shooting the mammals which had been foraging on the company’s precious fish.

Sea Shepherd identified themselves and filmed while a gunman and two assistants searched for seals around the village of Crovie.

With another Sea Shepherd team monitoring the scene from a boat offshore, the Usan party abandoned their mission.

Scottish Wild Salmon has a permit from Marine Scotland to shoot seals if they interfere with their coastal salmon nets.

The charity claim the permit system is open to abuse and suffers from a lack of monitoring.

Sea Shepherd and similar groups are monitoring seal colonies near Thurso and off Angus in their mission to protect the marine ecosystem.