New Project: Structured and effective quotas
Consequences and advice for dynamic regional management of grey and harbour seal populations
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The project is led by Dr Daire Carroll from the Gothenburg University Seal Population Dynamics Group and involves international collaborators from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Estonia.
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Photo credit: Daire Carroll
The purpose of seal hunting in Sweden is to minimize the impact of seals on economic activities while allowing the recovery of populations from historic overhunting. This project will support Naturvårdsverket in implementing sustainable ecosystem-based management of grey and harbour seals.
This will be achieved by contributing new knowledge and tools for evaluating the relative impact of hunting distributed among geographic regions, sex-, and age-classes on seal populations.
Photo credit: Daire Carroll
Photo credit: Daire Carroll
Currently, quotas give the same value to young males as mature females, potentially limiting the usefulness of protective hunting. Hunting is also particularly concentrated in a small number of geographic locations along the coast. Areas with high levels of hunting may be vulnerable to local overexploitation.
This project will develop new threshold values for evaluating seal population status and a framework for evaluating the sustainability of annual quotas.
Photo credit: Daire Carroll
Key an eye on this page for new results and findings.
Project aims and workflow:
This work was funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket) through the Environmental research fund and the Swedish Research Council (Formas), grant number (2024-00147).
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Read more about this and other funded projects here.
