More Seals to be Hunted in Sweden this Year – But how are the GreySeals in the Baltic Doing?

According to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the goal for the gray seal population is for their impact on human interests to be positive or neutral.

But how do seals actually affect our environment? And how are the gray seals in the Baltic Sea doing?

We joined researchers from SLU and the Swedish Museum of Natural History to assess the seals’ health.

“They (the politicians, ^{editor’s note}) have already decided that we need to limit the seal population—or all seals everywhere—because they negatively impact fish stocks. But that means they’ve skipped quite a few steps and stages in terms of knowledge,” says Karl Lundström, a researcher at the Department of Aquatic Resources, Marine Fisheries Laboratory in Lysekil.

^{About Deep Sea Reporter: Our ambition is to examine and report on issues related to the sea and the life that exists beneath its surface. We operate in the public interest and are independent of political, commercial, and other interests in society.}