Seals alone not to blame for fish stock pressure

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The Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources says the country’s strained commercial fish stocks are not being driven by the country’s growing seal population alone.

The ministry's deputy director for public relations and information services Romeo Muyunda warned that the real causes run far deeper.

Muyunda explained that while seals do have an impact on fish population dynamics, it is important to recognise that Namibia’s commercial fish stocks were heavily exploited prior to Independence and are still in the process of rebuilding to sustainable levels.

“Additionally, the marine ecosystem is highly complex, and factors such as environmental variability, prey availability, and ecosystem interactions make it difficult to quantify the exact contribution of seal predation to current stock pressures,” he told Network Media Hub (NMH) on Monday.

His remarks come shortly after President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, during her recent State of the Nation Address (SONA), revealed that there is a general downward trend in the main regulated species for Total Allowable Catch (TAC), raising concerns about the sector's long-term sustainability and productivity.

“While the country continues with science-based fisheries management, recent stock assessments reveal that several key commercial species are under increasing pressure,”

“The fishing sector remains a vital part of Namibia’s economy, contributing 4.1% to GDP, generating N$14.3 billion in exports, and supporting over 21,000 direct jobs across the value chain.

"The government promotes local value addition through the 70:30 policy ratio, which requires that fish quotas be processed onshore to maximize employment opportunities. We are currently at 100% for Monk and 80% for Hake, and soon the latter will also be processed locally at 100%,” she said.

The President added that this highlights management and urgency of adaptive conservation efforts to safeguard the future of Namibia’s fisheries and the livelihoods they support.

Muyunda further noted that while the increasing seal population may contribute to pressure on certain shared fish stocks, it is not the sole or primary driver.

“The situation is influenced by a combination of historical overfishing, environmental factors, and ecosystem dynamics, all of which must be considered in fisheries management decisions,” Muyunda explained.

According to Muyunda, Cape fur seals are opportunistic predators, known to consume a wide variety of prey and to adapt their diet based on availability.

“Scientific studies conducted in Namibian waters since 2013 show that the bearded goby, a non-commercial species, has consistently been the dominant component of their diet, accounting for between 50% and 90% in some years.

"However, commercially important species such as hake, horse mackerel, and squid also form part of the seal diet, particularly in certain regions.

“In the Central South and Far South, hake consumption has increased since 2022, reaching approximately 70% of the seal diet in the Central South by 2025. In the Central North and Far North, horse mackerel contributes between 10% and 50% of the diet, averaging around 30% in recent years,” he added.

He highlighted that pilchard, which has shown biomass recovery over the past three years, accounted for about 10% of the diet in 2025.

“Regarding management, Namibia’s seal population is regulated through a Total Allowable Catch (TAC) system, which provides for the sustainable harvesting of both pups and bulls.

"The annual TAC has consistently been set at 6,000 bulls and 80,000 pups. However, over the past decade, the industry has not been able to harvest the full quota of pups largely due to market restrictions and bans. This under-harvesting has contributed to the continued growth of the seal population,” he said.

Meanwhile, Walu Fishing managing director Erna Loch told Namibian Sun that the sustainability of the country’s marine resources is under serious threat due to the rapid growth and largely unmanaged seal population and its increasing impact on shared fish stocks.

According to her, scientific estimates indicate that a single seal consumes approximately 6 kilograms of fish per day.

“With an estimated seal population of 3 million, total fish consumption is as follows, 18 million kilograms (18 000 metric tons) per day and 6 570 000 metric tons per year. By comparison, Namibia’s Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for all fisheries combined (Hake, Horse Mackerel, Monk) is approximately 339 000 metric tons this year of 2026, excluding the bycatch.

“This means that seals consume nearly 20 times more fish annually than the total amount legally allocated to the entire fishing industry. While fishing is strictly regulated through quotas, monitoring, and enforcement, seal predation remains uncontrolled, continuous, and year-round,” Loch said.

Two years ago, Adolf Burger, the general manager of Princess Brand Processing (PBP), raised concerns about the increasing number of seal colonies in areas rich with horse mackerel, saying the company now has to “compete” with the seals.

Speaking at a consultation meeting with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources, he highlighted the “devastating effects” of the growing seal population on the sustainable harvest of fish stock in Walvis Bay.

According to him, the seals understand the fishing operations of vessels.

“They come for the vessels when they see them pumping. They know how we operate and there's nothing that we can do to scare off these seals.”

He added that seals cause significant damage to the vessels' pumps.

“The breakages are significant and cause you to stop your pumping, which raises quality issues with the fish. Sometimes body parts of seals get into the tanks on the vessels and then come to shore. On the few occasions this happened, it wasn't a good sight in the factory as it looked like human body parts that were pumped out with fish into the factory,” he said.

Early last year, the unchecked growth of Namibia’s seal population stems from quota holders focusing almost exclusively on harvesting bull seals for their genitals while neglecting the rest of the animal, including meat and valuable by-products, due to a lack of demand.

Then-chairperson of the parliamentary standing committee on natural resources, Tjekero Tweya, presenting the committee’s findings in parliament, argued that the current system benefits only a handful of investors while overlooking broader industrialisation applications.

“It is true that seals are overpopulated. Why? The ministry of fisheries issues quotas for harvesting, and this year, 60 000 seals were allocated. Of these, approximately 8 000 are bulls, while the rest are pups,” he said.

Tweya noted that Namibia faces international pressure due to seals being listed as an endangered species.

He added that foreign investors are only interested in seal genitals for their alleged medicinal purposes, meaning the 8 000 bulls are targeted, while the remaining 52 000 seals, including their meat, oil and other by-products, are largely discarded.

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