A fisherman has called for around 5,000 seals to be culled because they are tearing fish apart, leaving him without any income.
But Seal Rescue Ireland said the animals need to be saved because of their importance to the ecosystem.
Micky Hennessy, 54, from Dingle, Co Kerry, told the Irish Mirror: “The fish are in bits.
"The seals have gone out of control. They follow the boats out at 4am, the minute you get started.
“Normally there would be one or two but now there’s around 15 and we are hauling back in a lot sooner but every second fish is just destroyed.
“I have no income at the moment because I can’t sell the fish the state that they are in.”
Micky said he has been fishing for nearly 40 years and has never experienced the volume of seals and believes it’s only a matter of time before someone swimming is seriously injured.
He said: “There’s so many of them there, they’re starving.
“We had a meeting before Christmas with wildlife members and they’re saying there’s about 10,000 seals between Kerry Head and Bray Head.
“It’s affecting our livelihood.
“We’re small boats, it’s very hard to make a living out of it and it’s impossible at the moment.
“We want the seals to be managed, they cull the deer and foxes but they don’t care about the fishermen.
“It’s only a matter of time before one attacks a young child swimming in the water and then they’ll do something about it but it’ll be too late.
“Maybe if we could cull around at least 5,000 that’s more than enough in order to for it to be sustainable.”
But Seal Rescue Ireland chief Melanie Croce said killing seals is not the answer.
She added: “We are aware there has been calls for a cull.
“Seals are needed for these waters alongside healthy fish stocks.
“The reason there is a fish stock decline is because of a lot of unsustainable practices and the fish stocks haven’t had a chance to grow back.
“Placing the blame on seals is not the reason, it’s the collapse of the ecosystems.
“We would like to work with fishermen to try and protect the habitat and the marine biodiversity so the fish stocks come back.
“If you reduce the number of seals the number of fish will not go up – that’s not the case.
“Although it may seem like they’re in high numbers in Ireland they’re actually only recovering.
“The numbers are considered stable, they are not overpopulated.
“We do want to support local sustainable Irish fishermen and want to work with them to find common ground.”
