Grace Hickling

Grace Hickling MBE (née Grace Watt; 10 August 1908 – 30 December 1986) was an English ornithologist, naturalist, and nature writer. In 1974 she was appointed Member of the British Empire.

Quotes

On 3rd December, 1958, ten grey seal calves were killed on the North Wamses, a small island some three miles off the north Northumberland coast. This was the first licensed killing of grey seals during the breeding season since the passing of the 1932 Grey Seals Protection Act and it was intended to be the first stage of an experimental annual cull of 300 calves, recommended as a means of reducing the grey seal population of the Fame Islands and thereby lessening the damage done by seals to the salmon fishing industry.
- (1964) "Fisheries and the Farne Islands Grey Seals". Oryx 7 (4): 172–176.

These youngsters appear to have little fear of man for Jack Shiel tells the story of how, on a day in late autumn when they were line fishing for haddock, a young seal kept helping himself to the best fish while the men were taking the others from the hooks.
- Grey Seals and the Farne Islands. Routledge & Paul. 1962. p. 110. (180 pages)

To-day, although numbers of fur seals are still taken—in addition to the Pribilof cull some 30,000 yearlings of the South African fur seal are killed each year—the decrease in the number of whales, and the increasing demand for edible oil has meant a growing emphasis on the exploitation of seals for oil.
- p. 155

In 1949 Grace and Ian Telfer, an NHSN member, decided to mark seals in an attempt to follow their movements. Though grey seals are resident on the Farnes, nothing was known about them outside the breeding season. The first seals were tagged in 1951, and within fifteen days the first marked seal was recovered in Norway. This was ground breaking research as no one had realised how far the Grey Seals were traveling.
- Anne Wilson, Amazing Grace. Anne Wilson explores the life of the NHSN’s most famous 20th-century Chair, and the first woman to lead the Society. Natural History Society of Northumbria (NHSN) (11 July 2025).