The Seals and Fisheries Program

The Seals and Fisheries Program develop mitigation methods to minimize the increasing seal and fisheries conflict. Our goal is a viable coastal fishery along with sustainable seal stocks.

Sweden has a long coastline, with favorable conditions for an extensive coastal fishery. An increasing threat to coastal fisheries is the growing seal populations. Seals damage fishing gear and catch which causes significant economic losses for fishermen. Coastal fisheries are economically, cultural and socially important for Swedish coastal communities, and therefore it is essential to find solutions, which reduce conflict between seals and fisheries.

The Seals and Fisheries Program (SFP) is a research group at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Aquatic Resources (SLU Aqua). The main goal of the program is to develop mitigation methods to minimize the increasing seal and fisheries conflict. The focus has been to develop fishing gear with comparable catch rates as traditional gear, which are seal-safe and easy to handle for the fishermen. Examples of seal-safe fishing gear used within the Seals and Fisheries Program are mainly passive gear like traps and pots, but also active methods like small-scale seine are being developed. In addition to gear development, the program also compile and analyse data from the Swedish commercial fisheries regarding seal damages on catch and fishing gear.


If you want to read more about our work, you can download our folder below or have a look at “Rapporter & Artiklar” where we list many of our reports (several of them in English).



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Seals and Fisheries Program.pdf Pdf, 5.1 MB. 5.1 MB 2019-03-28 10.12