Yorkshire coast fishermen want contraception devices used to curb the fast growing seal population which they claim is having a devastating effect on their catches.

Coupled with new cuts on landing quotas for next year being introduced as part of European Union conservation measures, the fishermen say they are facing a bleak outlook.

At a meeting of the North-East Sea Fisheries Committee, at Whitby at the weekend, fishermen from Scarborough, Whitby, Filey and Bridlington voiced their worries about the industry's future.

Richard Brewer a leading Whitby skipper and director of the Anglo-Scottish Fish producers Organisation, said the seal population was now at its highest ever.

"They have no natural predator and they are breeding fast," he said. "We would be against the wholesale culling of seals, but we think they could be injected with a contraceptive dart to reduce their numbers."

Government legislation was now being urged by the fishermen on the issue, he said.

"They eat between two and three times their own body weight in fish each day, but they also kill to play, probably just taking a bite out of a fish and discarding it."

While the local fleets had "weathered the storm" reasonably well lately, Mr Brewer feared there would be a cut in the number of fishing boats on the coast in the future with more being decommissioned.

The fishermen face a dramatic 74 per cent cut in the hake quota landings next year, 56 per cent in cod, and 47 per cent in whiting.

Mr Brewer said the fishermen wanted a rethink by the EU on its decision to axe the minimum landing sizes of fish.

"They have no great value for our fishermen, but they would be of benefit to the Spanish fleets. At the end of the day the EU is destroying the fishing stocks for the future by its policy."

So far, only the expensive fish - turbot, lemon sole, plaice and Dover sole - are affected, but the fishermen fear the relaxation could affect all white fish.

Enlargement of the EU will, fishermen believe, lead to greater invasion of the North Sea fishing waters.

As a result, the fishermen want the Royal Navy to carry out patrols between the three mile and six mile zones off the coast which are at present only patrolled by one vessel on the North-East coast, the Sea Fisheries Committee's own North- East Guardian.