Tag Archives: Commissioner Ron Beaty
Letter to the Editor: (and the rest of the world) Urging Action on Seal Population Control
The exploding seal population is a consequence of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, which allowed for the rapidly growing seal overpopulation. Seals attract great white sharks, which feed upon them and ferociously attack humans. We once had a thriving fishing industry, kept healthy in part by a bounty system of predator control. That ended in 1972 with the passage of the protection act, which not only lifted the bounties on fish-eating predators like seals, but placed them under perpetual protection, immune from mitigation. Now fully recovered, the seal population has grown beyond what any reasonable person would consider healthy. Ron Beaty >click to read< 07:15
Latest shark incident prompts Cape Cod politician to push ‘Hazard migration strategy’ – would hook ’em, kill ’em
A Barnstable County commissioner is proposing a controversial “shark hazard mitigation strategy” after a shark attacking a seal off a Cape Cod beach Monday sent terrified swimmers and surfers scrambling to shore. Commissioner Ron Beaty is looking to deploy baited drum lines with hooks near popular beaches in the hopes of catching great white sharks — a protocol that he says has been successfully implemented in South Africa and Australia. “From my viewpoint, based upon the sharp increase in shark-related attacks and incidents around Cape Cod in recent years, there is a clear and present danger to human life as a result of this growing problem,”. (He’s not wrong, as a report of a shark gnawing on a paddleboard surfaced today, (click here) . Greg Skomal, a state Division of Marine Fisheries biologist, said he would need to know more about Beaty’s proposal, which, based on the commissioner’s seven-sentence press release, “doesn’t seem to have much to it.” “I’m wondering what the shark hazard is,” said Skomal, who has spent more than 30 years studying sharks. click here to read the story 15:26
