HOPES are high for the future of the Yorkshire Coast fishing industry - providing the growing seal population can be kept at bay.

Arnold Locker, a leading Whitby skipper and head of a trawler company, and chairman of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, said: "If the young fish are allowed to mature as they should, the prospects are looking better."

Scientists predict this year will be a good one for haddock and cod stocks, especially within the 50-mile limit along the Yorkshire coast.

Mr Locker said that this year's stocks of young cod and haddock could be as much as 1,000 times up on previous years.

But the fishermen's biggest headache is the seal population, which devour or damage large amounts of fish.

In 1998, seals ate 45,000 tonnes of fish in the North Sea. Latest figures show that an estimated 138,000 tonnes is being lost a year because the seals are protected. They can only be shot if they are caught damaging fishing gear, said Mr Locker, but culls have repeatedly been ruled out by the Government.

Another problem fishermen face is the increasing number of cormorants, but Mr Locker said they are probably a bigger hazard to anglers than professional fishermen.

"The stocks are well on the way to regeneration," said Mr Locker, "but it is vital that we don't get any further restrictions imposed on us if our fleets are to survive."