Agents seek answers in seal mutilations

PORTLAND – Federal agents investigating a string of seal mutilations along the New England coast acknowledge the attention the incidents are getting may be out of proportion to the small number of animals affected.

But, they say, the extra publicity may lead to the successful prosecution of those responsible for mutilating seals found along the coastline from Massachusetts to Maine over the past eight months.

“I’m not encouraging my agents to investigate this because they’re cute and furry,” said Andy Cohen, regional law enforcement director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “I’m having them investigate this because this is a violation of the law.”

NOAA, which is looking into possible violations of Marine Mammal Protection Act, is investigating the deaths of 10 seals. Violations can lead to civil penalties of up to $12,000, criminal fines of up to $20,000 and jail time.

Four of the 10 animals had been skinned, and two of those were males whose genitals had also been removed. One other male was missing its genitals, and four had been decapitated. Another seal was shot but survived.

Investigators cannot say that the cases are connected, despite speculation that seals are being killed by commercial fishermen or by traffickers selling body parts for use as an aphrodisiac.

“We’re looking at it up and down the coast from Maine to southern Massachusetts, with the possibility of these all being related,” Cohen said. “We have not established a pattern.”

People discover hundreds of sick and dying seals along New England beaches each year. Many are pups, weaned at 2 to 3 weeks and left to fend for themselves. Others are adults, sick and dehydrated, who haul themselves onto shore to rest.

Networks of volunteers respond to calls about stranded seals. They evaluate the animals and, if warranted, bring them to facilities where they can be nursed back to health, tagged and released back into the wild.

The numbers of seals found dead or stranded on the beach have grown as seal populations have rebounded since near extinction on some parts of the Maine coast in the early 1900s.

Thanks to the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which made it illegal to kill seals, their populations rebounded across New England, particularly among harbor seals. There are now an estimated 100,000 harbor seals in New England.

All those extra seals inevitably mean more deaths. Boston’s New England Aquarium examines the bodies of about 150 seals found each year from north of Cape Cod to the Maine-New Hampshire border.

“Dead seals are a common event. That’s the one thing that people need to understand,” spokesman Tony LaCasse said.