Keith the Seal saved (From Worcester News)

induby says...
10:13am Thu 24 Jan 13

I find this situation difficult to understand , the anglers don't own the river Severn ,its not up to them whether keith stays or not!,
so why do they get to make any decisions regarding her whatsoever?, she is a wild animal,a protected one at that and unless she is in distress or in ill health, I really cant see why she just cant be left alone.

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jennifer1995 says...
10:33am Thu 24 Jan 13

I agree induby, who are the anglers to make decisions. This report has totally baffled me.

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Fog Based Japery says...
10:33am Thu 24 Jan 13

induby wrote:
I find this situation difficult to understand , the anglers don't own the river Severn ,its not up to them whether keith stays or not!,
so why do they get to make any decisions regarding her whatsoever?, she is a wild animal,a protected one at that and unless she is in distress or in ill health, I really cant see why she just cant be left alone.

I kind of agree with you even though I'm no eco-mentalist seal hugger. If she was able to get to where she is of her own accord then surely she is entitled to be there. Unless she starts tucking into some swans then I'd leave her be. I'm sure as soon as she gets the horn and has the desire to mate she will return to a more usual setting.

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Gerry Taggart says...
10:40am Thu 24 Jan 13

If you look at their web site, you'll see that BDMLR is an organisation dedicated to the rescue and well-being of all marine ANIMALS IN DISTRESS around the UK.

From what has been so well reported by WN and others, Kieth's not in distress; it's the self appointed arbiters, the Anglers' Trust, who are wittering about her hunting in their hunting grounds.

Both these organisations get charitable status ( i.e. Taxpayers support them). They would be better off sticking to the mission of their charities.

So many busybodies! Just leave the animal alone.

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Say what you see says...
11:23am Thu 24 Jan 13

Keep the seal, shoot the anglers

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Hwicce says...
12:28pm Thu 24 Jan 13

Can we have the anglers relocated? Maybe to the middle of the North Sea?

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zx12r says...
2:08pm Thu 24 Jan 13

Can someone please tell me about the poor salmon, who swims 100s of miles to spawn only to be gobbled up by this thing before it has a chance to get the last few miles & do it's duty.

This seal is a natural hunter in, (at the moment) unnatural surroundings & should be returned to the sea before the floods come back & it's washed up into a field where it could die.

And before the furry lovers get all snotty with me, I'm not an angler, just one who feels a little common sense should come into this before it's too late.

I for one would rather see it with it's mates around the coast than swimming round a fairground in Stourport-on-Severn.

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MrThirsty247 says...
2:30pm Thu 24 Jan 13

Why does the human race always insist on pulling out a gun on these defenseless animals? Do you release in your narrow minded little skulls WE ARE ANIMALS TOO? - I thought by now we'd passed that sort of ancient thinking! Let me explain: Humans are apes, which are primates, which are mammals, which are animals. We share over 98% of our DNA with chimps. Every living creature on Earth is related to every other.

Honestly it has as much right to be there as you sticking your ruddy fishing roads and dirty boats in the river. Now Leave the bloody thing alone and get on with your own lives.

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induby says...
2:38pm Thu 24 Jan 13

Zx12r ,that has to be the stupidest thing iv'e ever read! poor salmon!, are you really so stupid that you think one seal that moves around a several mile radius on a natural river system which is fed by thousands of feeder streams with many subsidiaries will even make the slightest dent if any in the "MILLIONS" I say again "MILLIONS" of fish in the Severn, hahahaha, that's hilarious.but really why cant she just be left alone, im sure if she showed any sign of illness and distress their would be many who would help her, but she is fine so leave her alone

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zx12r says...
3:15pm Thu 24 Jan 13

Well induby, there may be millions of fish in the Severn, but there ain't millions of salmon & I know which I would rather eat between a salmon & a roach, weather from a tin or fresh & it ain't the roach.

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induby says...
3:27pm Thu 24 Jan 13

im sorry "zx12R" how do you know that keith don't eat roach? seals live on a variety of fish, who says she just eats salmon? there are perch,pike chubb, rudd,carp, bream,and many more and not to mention the zander, i mean for all you know keith might be filling her tummy with zander a non native predator which causing havoc with our waterways??

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zx12r says...
4:43pm Thu 24 Jan 13

Right, lets point him towards the Zander then, I agree with you, they are a very nasty species indeed.
Mind having seen a Zander, it could probably give Keith a nip or two.

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Dharma says...
5:55pm Thu 24 Jan 13

Along with others, I cannot understand how the Angling Trust have any right to interfere with this animal. After threatening to shoot Keith the current plan may seem better, but what law allows them to intervene in this way? Rather like a 'Wild West' film - get shot or run out of town. Some have said a similar rule should be applied to anglers but I couldn't possibly comment.

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pudniw_gib says...
6:08pm Thu 24 Jan 13

I suspect it is not the entire angling community making a fuss and talking rubbish. Unfortunately its usually the noisy minority that get the attention.

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Dharma says...
7:25pm Thu 24 Jan 13

pudniw_gib. The issue for me is that
http://www.anglingtr
ust.net/ believe that they police rivers and the creatures in them.

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Andy1955 says...
9:16pm Thu 24 Jan 13

I'm a boater, and as such I realise that we all share and enjoy the river.
I love the idea of our very own Seal.
If I am luck enough to come across him on my travels, I will give him a wide birth... Just as I USED to do anglers!

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marksurrey says...
9:44pm Thu 24 Jan 13

Has Sarah Davies been on the moon for the past week? She gives credit to the Angling trust when it was them to wanted Keith shot. She vaguely mentions the real reason Keith won reprieve and that was the thousands of people that campaigned against the angling trust. Facebook, twitter, the sun and other national papers all launched campaigns. Also the Facebook petition that has over 3,500 signatures’ think a few words to the press complaints commission are in order unless she changes the wording of this heavily biased piece and actually reports the facts. I wonder if she has friends at the trust.

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marksurrey says...
9:47pm Thu 24 Jan 13

induby wrote:
I find this situation difficult to understand , the anglers don't own the river Severn ,its not up to them whether keith stays or not!,
so why do they get to make any decisions regarding her whatsoever?, she is a wild animal,a protected one at that and unless she is in distress or in ill health, I really cant see why she just cant be left alone.

Me too as i say in my piece, the author of this story has totally missed the point and the fact the angling trust have had to climb down.I suspect she has conatcs at the trust, the story is heaviliy biased.

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ushmush83 says...
8:56am Fri 25 Jan 13

How many fish can one seal eat exactly? I do not see why humans have any more right to fish for sport than the seal does for food, it just baffles me. Maybe all humans should be sent to their native home in East Africa....? Live and let live. Peace out maaaaaaaaaaan.

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MJI says...
9:13am Fri 25 Jan 13

What about the ducks though?

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chrism says...
10:09am Fri 25 Jan 13

MJI wrote:
What about the ducks though?

I'm sure the Angling Trust would also get rid of them if it could. It does after all have a high profile campaign to cull cormorants who are stealing the anglers' fish.

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pudniw_gib says...
11:19am Fri 25 Jan 13

Apparently seals cant digest feathers so dont go for ducks.
The anglers should keep their heads down, there is still a problem with lines in the undergrowth left to snag birds etc and some probably still use lead weights that swans eat.
They no doubt have helped the clean up of the rivers by moaning about pollution and rightly so but they mostly are not experts on wildlife behaviour and certainly shouldn't dictate the wildlife policies in our waterways.
I would add my voice to those who ask how many fish can a seal eat and can it possibly have an effect on stocks?
Any fish hooked by an angler has a chance of death from injury and infection, this mortality rate must be higher than the fish catch by a seal, given a stretch of river that covers the range of this animal?

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Marant says...
12:07pm Fri 25 Jan 13

It's a fairly moot point if they wanted to go for a licence to shoot keith anyway.

Licences are given to kill protected animals for the prevention of significant damage to property. The closest you would get in this instance is to consider the fish livestock, so the licence could be awarded to, for example, a fish farmer if Keith had taken up residence in his fish farm.

Difficult to prove who owns the fish in the river - normally whoever owns the fishing rights/land, in the same way that if a pheasant lands in your garden, it's technically yours. Until it flies off. The angling trust don't own the fish, fishing rights or land. They would have to get a land owner/rights owner to apply for the licence. So perhaps a fishery owner could claim ownership of fish stocks on their stretch of the river and apply for a licence.

Then you would have to prove significant damage. Easy in the case of the fish farmer example, if the seal had taken up residence.

Not so easy for a fishery owner when a) they don't know/can't prove the fish stocks in their stretch, and can't prove impact on them (not in the short term at least - if they held catch records (not anecdotal ones) over a few years, then maybe) and b) Keith is roaming from Upton to Bewdley. The impact is spread over a wide area, and hard to prove that it is significant to any one fishery owner.

I can't see how a licence would be granted.

BTW I'm writing this as both an angler and an ecologist. How's that for both sides of the fence?

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countrybumpkin999 says...
2:35pm Fri 25 Jan 13

Look some of you early posters are doing my head in!

The person at the Angling Trust who decided it was a good idea to put in a public statement that the Trust had applied for a license to shoot the seal wants shooting himself for being a moron! The Angling Trust says it works to protect anglers and as your comments on here have shown this statement has had the opposite effect. It was PR suicide.

However, the AT do not represent all anglers so i think the comments of induby, jennifer1995 and Hwicce are stupid as you don't know enough facts and before you say that you do, you clearly do not as not every angler is a member of the trust. I am not a member nor ppl i go fishing with. So do not tarnish all anglers with the same negative brush that you tarnish the AT with.

Let me as you this......... millions of people vote in this country. So do the Tory party represent every voter in this country? Do the labour party? Of course not ! Otherwise we would just have voters and not seperate partys.

And those of you quick to slate anglers, they pay for their right to use the river through a £27 license fee to the Environment Agency - who in turn have been inept in failing to do something and have failed to show anglers that they are using this money wisely.

Also anglers are the first to report problems on the river - pollution, rubbish, animals in distress etc as they are out on the bank all year. We work hard to conserve the habitat of the river for all flora and fauna. We undertake bank maintenance and our license money goes toward fish re-stocking. We actively remove old fishing line and other dangers left by idiotic anglers.

Let me ask all you ppl slating anglers (induby, jennifer1995, Hwicce etc) WHAT DO YOU DO TO HELP LOOK AFTER THE RIVER? Do you do ANY of those activities i have just mentioned? Before this seal came did you actually take any interest in the river or are you just jumping on the bandwagon. Don't be quick to slate those that do a whole lot more than you.

Look some of you early posters are doing my head in! The person at the Angling Trust who decided it was a good idea to put in a public statement that the Trust had applied for a license to shoot the seal wants shooting himself for being a moron! The Angling Trust says it works to protect anglers and as your comments on here have shown this statement has had the opposite effect. It was PR suicide. However, the AT do not represent all anglers so i think the comments of induby, jennifer1995 and Hwicce are stupid as you don't know enough facts and before you say that you do, you clearly do not as not every angler is a member of the trust. I am not a member nor ppl i go fishing with. So do not tarnish all anglers with the same negative brush that you tarnish the AT with. Let me as you this......... millions of people vote in this country. So do the Tory party represent every voter in this country? Do the labour party? Of course not ! Otherwise we would just have voters and not seperate partys. And those of you quick to slate anglers, they pay for their right to use the river through a £27 license fee to the Environment Agency - who in turn have been inept in failing to do something and have failed to show anglers that they are using this money wisely. Also anglers are the first to report problems on the river - pollution, rubbish, animals in distress etc as they are out on the bank all year. We work hard to conserve the habitat of the river for all flora and fauna. We undertake bank maintenance and our license money goes toward fish re-stocking. We actively remove old fishing line and other dangers left by idiotic anglers. Let me ask all you ppl slating anglers (induby, jennifer1995, Hwicce etc) WHAT DO YOU DO TO HELP LOOK AFTER THE RIVER? Do you do ANY of those activities i have just mentioned? Before this seal came did you actually take any interest in the river or are you just jumping on the bandwagon. Don't be quick to slate those that do a whole lot more than you. countrybumpkin999

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You_know_I'M_right says...
3:32pm Fri 25 Jan 13

That seal would make a nice hat

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induby says...
4:32pm Fri 25 Jan 13

i will tell you what i do "Countrybumpkin999",

I pay taxes to this government as I have done for many, many years, the government in turn gives lots of money from taxes to the environmental protection agency, who in turn spend 20 million a year on looking after the Rivers, so as I do pay towards the waterways I am entitled to an opinion, and just because you pay £27 extra for the pleasure of "fishing a river" it does not give you the monopoly on it!, and I hardly see questioning the "god complex" some anglers seem to have as regards to their rights, jumping on the bandwagon, i think its a point that needs seriously addressed.

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1P1A1R1K1Y says...
12:24am Sat 26 Jan 13

Did you know that 1000 seals are killed each year in Scotland to prevent them from killing the salmon and trout? You don't seem to be moaning about that, and yet you're angry about this seal having to be moved from its unnatural environment where it's decimating the native fish stocks, disrupting the natural balance of the ecosystem.
Some of the earlier posts are quick to
mention the effect of zander on the fish stocks, but these have been in the Severn for over 25 years and are well established now. I don't know why people think zander are a particularly 'nasty species', they are no more predatory than pike.

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The Doosra says...
9:01pm Sat 26 Jan 13

countrybumpkin999 wrote:
Look some of you early posters are doing my head in!

The person at the Angling Trust who decided it was a good idea to put in a public statement that the Trust had applied for a license to shoot the seal wants shooting himself for being a moron! The Angling Trust says it works to protect anglers and as your comments on here have shown this statement has had the opposite effect. It was PR suicide.

However, the AT do not represent all anglers so i think the comments of induby, jennifer1995 and Hwicce are stupid as you don't know enough facts and before you say that you do, you clearly do not as not every angler is a member of the trust. I am not a member nor ppl i go fishing with. So do not tarnish all anglers with the same negative brush that you tarnish the AT with.

Let me as you this......... millions of people vote in this country. So do the Tory party represent every voter in this country? Do the labour party? Of course not ! Otherwise we would just have voters and not seperate partys.

And those of you quick to slate anglers, they pay for their right to use the river through a £27 license fee to the Environment Agency - who in turn have been inept in failing to do something and have failed to show anglers that they are using this money wisely.

Also anglers are the first to report problems on the river - pollution, rubbish, animals in distress etc as they are out on the bank all year. We work hard to conserve the habitat of the river for all flora and fauna. We undertake bank maintenance and our license money goes toward fish re-stocking. We actively remove old fishing line and other dangers left by idiotic anglers.

Let me ask all you ppl slating anglers (induby, jennifer1995, Hwicce etc) WHAT DO YOU DO TO HELP LOOK AFTER THE RIVER? Do you do ANY of those activities i have just mentioned? Before this seal came did you actually take any interest in the river or are you just jumping on the bandwagon. Don't be quick to slate those that do a whole lot more than you.

I pay taxes too - and even if I didn't, we live in a democracy and I WILL express my opinion on any subject I choose to without any let or hinderance from you. Your arrogance is breathtaking.

[quote][p][bold]countrybumpkin999[/bold] wrote: Look some of you early posters are doing my head in! The person at the Angling Trust who decided it was a good idea to put in a public statement that the Trust had applied for a license to shoot the seal wants shooting himself for being a moron! The Angling Trust says it works to protect anglers and as your comments on here have shown this statement has had the opposite effect. It was PR suicide. However, the AT do not represent all anglers so i think the comments of induby, jennifer1995 and Hwicce are stupid as you don't know enough facts and before you say that you do, you clearly do not as not every angler is a member of the trust. I am not a member nor ppl i go fishing with. So do not tarnish all anglers with the same negative brush that you tarnish the AT with. Let me as you this......... millions of people vote in this country. So do the Tory party represent every voter in this country? Do the labour party? Of course not ! Otherwise we would just have voters and not seperate partys. And those of you quick to slate anglers, they pay for their right to use the river through a £27 license fee to the Environment Agency - who in turn have been inept in failing to do something and have failed to show anglers that they are using this money wisely. Also anglers are the first to report problems on the river - pollution, rubbish, animals in distress etc as they are out on the bank all year. We work hard to conserve the habitat of the river for all flora and fauna. We undertake bank maintenance and our license money goes toward fish re-stocking. We actively remove old fishing line and other dangers left by idiotic anglers. Let me ask all you ppl slating anglers (induby, jennifer1995, Hwicce etc) WHAT DO YOU DO TO HELP LOOK AFTER THE RIVER? Do you do ANY of those activities i have just mentioned? Before this seal came did you actually take any interest in the river or are you just jumping on the bandwagon. Don't be quick to slate those that do a whole lot more than you.[/p][/quote]I pay taxes too - and even if I didn't, we live in a democracy and I WILL express my opinion on any subject I choose to without any let or hinderance from you. Your arrogance is breathtaking. The Doosra

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DarrenM says...
8:15pm Sun 27 Jan 13

Doesn't bother me, I'd go out and shoot the thingy myself but I take exception to these pretend-quango wannabees claiming they own the public river or have the right to shoot something on it.

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countrybumpkin999 says...
9:26am Mon 28 Jan 13

Arrogance? Where have i said that i think we own the river?

Try reading my post again.... What i am doing is defending anglers against people such as yourselves. You keep making sweeping /generalising comments about anglers as a whole wanting to shoot the seal. Even Free Radio were doing this in their news report just before the weekend.

The Angling trust has around 15,000 members and i think around 1.5 million rod licenses are sold every year. So therefore the trust only represent ONE PER CENT of all anglers. So answer me this how does the trust's original statement about shooting the seal mean that ALL anglers want to shoot the seal?
I would say that people such as you Doosra and Induby are being worse than arrogant when you ignore facts like these. I bet you have no idea about the actual number of people in the Trust. It is incompetence on the part of the media to say that is "anglers" that wanted to shoot the seal. I am an angler, i do not.

And i am not saying anglers own the river, nobody owns the river. We all pay taxes as well you know! However, the point I am trying to say is that anglers work hard to conserve the habitat of the river through bank maintenance, litter clearing etc (as i mentioned before). I bet you 99% of the people who have made condescending statements about anglers do not do their part. Anglers do not own the river, far from it, and for you to make such statements is foolish.

All i was asking is if all this people moaning about anglers did their bit to help the habitat of the river, then everyone would benefit. But most, and I'm not saying all, are just keyboard warriors jumping on the bandwagon who will sit there and not do their part to look after the river but will happily criticise those that do, due to some stupid comments made by a Trust that represents around 1% of all the UK,s anglers.

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marksurrey says...
1:24am Tue 29 Jan 13

Angling trust backed down and wet itself due to publicity and no other reason. We now know Angling trust cannot be trusted, however Angling CLUB are good people.

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Keith the Seal saved (From Worcester News)

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