PORT HOOD, N.S. -- Residents of Cape Breton's southwest shore say they are shocked five seals have been found shot dead on a local beach.
"It's not normal. We've never heard of it here before," Charles MacDonald of Port Hood, N.S., said Monday.
Fisheries officials say they found the seals on a beach in the Little Judique area last Wednesday after a public tip.
"Evidence has been collected," said Etienne Chiasson, spokesman for the federal Fisheries Department. "The seal carcasses have been removed from the beach as part of the investigation."
It is illegal to disturb, harm or even approach marine mammals, except when fishing for them legally, and the seal harvest in the area is not currently open, Chiasson said.
MacDonald, who owns a motel a few miles down the road from Little Judique, said seals usually come to that stretch of Cape Breton's shore in January to give birth on the ice, but it's been a warm winter and the harbour hasn't iced over.
"The seals likely ... found some ice in close to shore, something like that, that they were pupping on," he said.
He said seals often come across the highway and up rivers in search of food, but not this year.
"I haven't heard a seal this year. You hear them in the nighttime, you hear them barking and that, but this year I haven't heard them."
