Canada should pay hunters to kill 70,000 seals off the East Coast to help the recovery of cod stocks even though there's little scientific evidence to support a large cull, a Senate committee recommended Tuesday.
The committee spent almost a year studying a federal proposal to slaughter up to 70 per cent of the grey seal population in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, a plan critics say has been driven by politics, not science.
"While acknowledging the ecological risks raised by some witnesses, the committee supports the logic of the proposed experimental reduction of grey seals in this area," the committee said in its report.
The chairman of the committee, Senator Fabian Manning of Newfoundland, admitted the call for a cull was not based on scientific research.
"There's no really solid research anywhere that shows us exactly - there's questions on both sides," he told a news conference on Parliament Hill.
Manning said scientific study during the recommended four-year slaughter will provide the government with the "research needed to address the concerns of people in Atlantic Canada and Quebec."
