Madam, - All these people pontificating about the evils of a humane seal cull should first ask themselves if they have ever laid poison to burn the guts out of a rat or set a trap to snap a mouse's neck.
Farmers can shoot any dog that attacks their flocks. Deer are culled in our national parks. Badgers are regularly culled on the suspicion that they spread TB and rabbits are not allowed to frolic unmolested on or under golf greens or on the smooth lawns of Glasnevin. It seems that it is OK for everyone else to protect their livelihood, but not the inshore fisherman.
We're not talking about torturing Santy here. If as many fishermen as seals had been found shot in Kerry a couple of months ago there would hardly have been such an outcry. Fishermen don't want seals to be wiped out altogether and they would prefer that any cull be handled in a professional and humane fashion, but the ballooning seal population is having a devastating effect on our livelihood. I can tell you from personal experience how disheartening (to put it mildly) it is to haul in your nets and find a bite gone out of every other fish.
Irish fishermen have the same aspirations for their families as everyone else but until seals start eating the tyres off BMWs they will continue to be regarded as a "menace to society".
In a country where our most valuable natural resource is the sea, fishermen are becoming more of an endangered species than the seal. - Yours, etc.,
CATHAL KING,
Gleggan,
Co Galway.