Animal rights row over plan to shoot infected seals

Plans to slaughter thousands of seals threatened by a deadly virus have provoked outrage among animal rights campaigners who claim the disease is treatable.

Plans to slaughter thousands of seals threatened by a deadly virus have provoked outrage among animal rights campaigners who claim the disease is treatable.

Six marksmen have been recruited by the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and put on stand-by to cull colonies in the hope of halting the spread of phocine distemper virus (PDV), which has already struck populations in Denmark, Sweden and England.

The disease, estimated to have killed more than 1,500 seals in other parts of the UK this year, has arrived in Scotland: the body of an infected seal was washed up at Dornoch in the Moray Firth last month. But the SSPCA has been accused of being "trigger-happy".

Les Ward, of the welfare organisation Advocates for Animals, said: "The SSPCA is supposed to exist to save animal life and prevent cruelty. We are very concerned at this proposed use of marksmen when the SSPCA could instead be constructing temporary holding centres to nurse infected seals back to health." Scotland has 80 per cent of the UK's seal population of 150,000, and there are fears if the virus takes hold – there is no known cure or means of prevention – it will cause mass devastation in colonies.

Fourteen years ago, an outbreak of PDV killed 18,000 common seals and 400 grey seals across northern Europe, cutting the seal population by up to 60 per cent in some waters. It took 12 years for numbers to return to pre-1988 levels.

The fear of a repeat catastrophe prompted the SSPCA to set up the team of marksmen. "This is the only way to stop the virus," an SSPCA spokesman said. "It spreads so quickly and there is no other treatment."

Welfare organisations believe the marksmen could kill indiscriminately because their practice of long-range shooting means they may not be able accurately to identify seals affected by the virus. They say there was some success in treating the 1988 outbreak.

The virus, which comes from the same family as canine distemper, strikes mainly common seals, attacking the immune system and leaving them susceptible to infections such as pneumonia. Symptoms include respiratory difficulties, coughing, nasal discharge, possible problems of the nervous system and subcutaneous emphysema (air under the skin).

"There are a lot more humane ways of handling this crisis than with a bullet," Ross Flett, of the Orkney Seal Rescue Centre, said.

"In 1988, we were able to save 55 per cent of infected seals brought to our temporary shelter and now we are more experienced and knowledgeable ... we would expect an even higher survival rate," he said. "We are absolutely opposed to any cull."