Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) has welcomed new legislation that came into force today to protect seals. Measures brought in under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 outlaw unregulated shooting of seals, establish a new licensing system to manage shooting and introduce a number of seal conservation areas around Scotland. Marine Scotland will be responsible for the implementation and monitoring of the new measures. John Baxter, SNH’s principal adviser on seals, said: “Given the serious and worrying decline in the numbers of common, or harbour, seals, these new measures are particularly important. They are a considerable improvement on provisions contained in previous…