Despite the fact that seals can be excluded from salmon farms by the use of high-strength, high tension predator exclusion nets the Scottish Government has refused to make these nets mandatory and has refused to stop issuing licences to shoot seals.
The link below shows that despite our requests the Government has not refused any of the applications to shoot seals in 2014 and has so far authorised the killing of up to 1005 seals. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/marine/Licensing/SealLicensing
You will also see from the licenses issued that most are for the protection of livestock (salmon in cages). It was myself who first drew to the attention of the Government that salmon in farm cages are covered by the provisions of the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 and that farmers must protect their salmon from the attention of predators. However unless a farmer shoots every seal which comes close to the cage nets s/he cannot comply with the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006. Due to weather and shooting conditions this is impossible. You can only do this by excluding seals using properly designed, installed and maintained exclusion nets or by farming the salmon in an on-shore tank system. Again the Government has refused to accept our case and continues to issue shooting licenses.