IT IS a classic conservation dispute, fuelled by stark images and emotive arguments.
Fishers accuse whales and seals of eating their precious, diminishing fish stocks, leading to renewed calls that these mammals be culled to safeguard the future of a beleaguered industry. Conservationists and animal welfare advocates retort that it is the other way round. They see the notion that whales and seals eat too much fish as unwarranted propaganda intended solely to justify archaic and inhumane whale and seal hunts. What’s more, they say, overfishing is taking food from the mouths of some of the world’s most endangered animals,…
