Does anyone seriously believe there is a provincial or federal political party that would back a seal cull given how supporting twinning of an existing oil pipeline in BC is working out for the Libs? DFO answers to their political masters no matter who they be and even if there was definitive scientific evidence that a cull would improve chinook and orca abundance, it's only one part of any government policy decision and I can't think of a party that would champion it. We're pitting those really cute doe-eyed rehabbed seal release videos by the Aquarium up against videos of stacks of seal carcasses on the beach! Unfortunately, what might fly politically at the mouth of the Columbia River is going to be a very tough sell in the Salish Sea.
Debating what it was like 20, 200 or even 2000 years ago is interesting but I don't think it's very helpful because of how the ecosystem has been changed and knocked out of it's natural balance by us for the last 150 years: contaminating their food chains, driving some prey and predator species to near extinction while artifically pumping up others, warming and filling the oceans with microplastics, messing up freshwater and nearshore habitats, etc. There may be parts of the ecosystem we can enhance and protect but direct manipulation of ecosystems has a long history of "unintented consequences". We need to find a balanced approach to limiting our utilization of the resources while letting the natural ecosystem "recover" to whatever it's new equilibrium will be given the new environmental conditions we've imposed on it.