Teeth and Nails

The winter beach is often the last resting place of fish, fowl, and mammal. On my last walk along the north shore of Nantucket, I found a dead Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). Such close-up encounters, albeit a bit queasy, can offer rare details. For instance, note the the animal’s human-scale teeth: Also, and this was a surprise to me, there are claws on the flippers:

Seals, like other sea mammals, used to be wantonly slaughtered, in their case for their fur, meat, and oil, and because they were perceived as competition by fisheries. Since 1972, the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, has done much to stop curtail these bloodbaths. Seals can now be seen in New York Harbor among other places up and down the Northeast coast. In the case of the larger Grey seal (Halichoerus grypus), which used to have a $5 bounty on their heads, the MMPA has helped them make a good recovery. So much so that recreational fishers now want to de-list them as “rare” now because they believe the animals are catching, um, “their” fish. Because golly, any sport that involves some actual competition is unfair, or some such bullshit.