"Basically, it was an unfortunate accident."

Rob Purser, director of fisheries for the Suquamish Tribe, explains the aftermath of when an Indian commercial fisher pulled a seal pup, caught in a gillnet, into his boat, on Saturday morning, Oct. 20, off Duwamish Head.

Witnesses on shore - including a photographer who staked out the net for two days - say he roughly untangled it, hit it on the boat's gunwale, and dumped it back into Elliott Bay.

The fisher "did nothing wrong, technically," Purser says. "We looked at that right away. Nothing in our regulations shows that the fisher was doing something wrong.

"But as soon as we heard about it, we had (our) enforcement close the area."

This fishery is part of Area 10A, Inner Elliott Bay, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. It is a "usual and accustomed fishing area" for the Suquamish Tribe.

Starting Oct. 22, weekly updates to the Suquamish fisheries hotline - which is faxed to all fishing tribes, the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission - include a new regulation for Area 10A: "Fishing near known seal rookeries is prohibited. Please move your nets away from these areas as the negative PR generated by catching and dispatching seal pups is not something the Tribe would like to explain."

"We weren't aware that was a breeding area," says Purser. The issue would have been addressed during annual co-management meetings, which coordinate all tribal, commercial, subsistence and recreational fisheries along the Washington State coastline and inland streams.

"We'll take precautions so we won't upset the seals in that area again," Purser says.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 protects marine mammals, including harbor seals, from being harassed, hunted, captured or killed. Through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the law exempts Indians and "incidental catch" from prosecution when seals or seal lions are caught in commercial gillnets as "incidental catch."

"We can't kill them," Purser says. "But if they become entangled, it doesn't leave the fisherman responsible."

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife requires all fishers to report the number of salmon caught and their incidental catch. Besides coho the and chum salmon fishers intend to catch, gillnets can fill with dogfish, jellyfish, salmon species not open for fishing, even seabirds. Fishers usually throw any incidental catch back into the water.

Because harbor seals are not an endangered species, reporting the number of seals caught is not mandatory, Purser says.

"I only know what fishermen talk about," Purser says. "(My information) is only anecdotal."

In 33 years experience fishing, Purser himself has caught only two seals. One was already drowned. The other "was live, in the boat. There's no way to grab him. Their bite is worse than a dog. It took us two hours, with poles, poking and jabbing, to get him out."

"That seal (on Oct. 20) must have already drowned." Purser noted the photos don't show the fisher struggling with the seal.

"The seal must not have been experienced around nets," Purser says. "He got his head in a hole in the web, panicked and rolled himself up.

"It's extremely rare," he says. The nets are not inherently dangerous to seals, but "if they get tangled, it's usually fatal."

"(Gillnet fishing) is clean, relative to other fisheries," confirms Jamie Eik, a sales manager for LFS Incorporated, a fishing and marine supply company in Ballard. "It's specific to catching only a certain kind of fish of a certain size."

David Harsilla, chair for the Puget Sound Salmon Commission, formerly known as the Puget Sound Gillnet Salmon Commission, has fished over 30 years. He has never caught a seal in one of his gillnets, although he concedes he runs a commercial boat in the middle of the Sound, not a small skiff near shore.

"As mammals, they're quite smart," Harsilla says. "They're rarely caught because of that. I'm surprised to see that this occurred.

"But with a small rookery there, why would they even be in there, setting any kind of net?"

Oct. 20 was not the first time a fisher pulled a seal into his boat off Duwamish Head. Alki resident Robin Lindsey also photographed another on Oct. 8. Although with a different boat, both pups were caught in the same gillnet, as identified by the number visible on its buoy tag.

No one has confirmed it was the same fisher.

Lindsey and other witnesses report the fisher on Oct. 8 handled the seal with more care. In contrast, on Oct. 20, that fisher handled the seal more roughly. While in the boat, the seal hit the gunwale hard enough that the thud could be heard by witnesses on shore.

Both seals disappeared in the water after being released. Witnesses watched but did not see either resurface.

"The current state is that there is no official investigation (by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)," says Brian Gorman, the public affairs specialist with the Administration. "As far as I know, there's no evidence that the seal died."

Reports of dead, relocated or rehabilitated marine mammals are tracked by Kristin Wilkinson, a marine mammal stranding specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She says has seen "two or three reports" during Oct. , but could not confirm any corresponding to three drownings in gillnets reported by witnesses from shore.

Brenda Peterson, coordinator of the Alki Seal Sitters, fills out the Level A forms for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, reporting each seal needing to be relocated or rehabilitated, or found dead.

No seal bodies were found immediately after Oct. 8 or 20. On Tuesday, Oct. 23, however, an injured male seal pup hauled out at nearby Don Armeni Park with a gash under his right foreflipper.

"We don't believe this was the one caught in the net," Peterson says, "but the injuries were consistent with a human cause."

Under observation for two days, the seal appeared to be starving. With federal permission, the pup was taken by veterinarians volunteering for the Progressive Animal Welfare Society. That pup died Oct. 30.

Fishers are responsible for calling their fishery hotline to check if an area has been closed to fishing or limits have been met. Tribal fisheries enforcement may be sent to an area, by boat or by land, to tell a fisher an area is closed and he has to pull up his net.

"And we'll make calls to them," Purser says. "They all have cell phones."

Matthew G. Miller may be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com