Earle McCurdy, president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union, says seals are threatening eastern Canadian cod stocks. Earle McCurdy, president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union, says seals are threatening eastern Canadian cod stocks. (CBC)

Fishermen say the seal population in eastern Canada should be culled to help fish stocks rebound.

The head of the Fish Food and Allied Workers union, that represents fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador, says the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is ignoring the root cause of cod stock decline.

FFAW president Earle McCurdy said Thursday that the federal fisheries department should be controlling seals, not cutting cod quotas in the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence.

DFO has cut this year's Northern Gulf cod quota by more than 40 per cent from 7,000 tonnes to 4,000 tonnes.

McCurdy said quota cuts punish harvesters without dealing with the real problem.

He says seals eat more fish than fishermen catch and the government should come up with a aggressive program to reduce grey seals.

McCurdy says DFO scientists have already linked grey seals to fish stock declines in the southern gulf.