Originally Posted by Duffman (Post 580722)

Been taking the wife to take pics of the seals for weeks. They are chowing down on everything. And by everything I mean everything.

Originally Posted by baseballman (Post 580738)

A population of 100+ harbor seals - you can easily count 20+ on the right day, and there's many more you can't see - cannot be sustained without abundant forage. Bunker, herring, peanuts, holdover stripers, micro blackfish, winter flounder...you name it. If it is there, they're eating it!

Originally Posted by Broad Bill (Post 580751)

Nature finds a way to balance itself out. It's not seals we need to worry about with winter flounder or any other potential forage of theirs unless there's been an explosion in their population which typically nature will insure doesn't happen. I'd be more concerned with the continued commercial exploitation of the winter flounder flounder stock that's been annihilated by commercials fishing for three to four decades.

If, on the other hand, the seals are in SH and feeding on flounder, that would only be happening if the flounder stock was rebuilding which would be a good thing. Unfortunately if you look at the below stock assessment, historical landings and recruitment, they're all at historic lows as the commercial sector continues pounding the stock insuring no rebuilding process will ever occur in our lifetime.

Winter flounder was one of the most prolific fisheries anglers in the Mid-Atlantic States ever had, the fact it was destroyed in a few short years by relentless :pnetting is something everyone should know and be concerned about. Natural mortality including predation will never kill a stock, it has built in checks and balances and those balances will insure it's survival and proliferation. Commercial netting, on the other hand, has no such balances or conscience and will completely destroy any stock if allowed to do so. Asinine regulations killed this stock when our greedy corrupt federal government allowed commercial operators to target winter flounder on a year round basis without sensible management measures. The fishery, which was an annual spring tradition to recreational anglers, never rebounded and never will unless it's closed down for a 3-5 year period to rebuild followed by proper management practices.

Originally Posted by Broad Bill (Post 580753)

If it's fun we want, I'll be happy removing my post. If it's hard facts about what's happening to our fisheries one by one, people should be informed and draw their own conclusions. The mismanagement of the fishery speaks for itself as does the decline in the stock. And no, in this case and most others, there's not an elephant in the room called climate change.