§ Lord Lewis of Newnhamasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their estimate of the seal population in United Kingdom waters in each of the last five years; and how much fish the seals will have eaten in each of those years.
Lord LucasThe estimated number of grey seals associated with breeding sites in British waters for the last five years for which information is available is as follows:
- 1990: 79,000
- 1991: 86,900
- 1992: 92,800
- 1993: 115,000
- 1994: 108,500
The Ministry does not have comparable figures for common seals but the present population is estimated to be 29,000.
Scientific work indicates that a seal can eat between 1.4 and 1.8 tonnes of fish each year. 1994 seal numbers might thus have accounted for between 193,000 tonnes and 248,000 tonnes of fish. This compares with 50WA total recorded landings by the UK fleet in 1994 of 760,000 tonnes of fish (excluding shellfish).