Wildlife campaigners are patrolling a Scottish harbour in a bid to prevent the death of seals.
Sea Shepherd crews have been deployed to Gamrie Bay near Peterhead, where the Scottish Wild Salmon Company will carry out seal management during the 2015 netting season.
The protest group claims its new campaign will be “significantly larger” than last year, when Sea Shepherd successfully lobbied for the use of non-lethal seal deterrents by the SWSC.
A spokesman said: “Sea Shepherd have deployed a seal defence crew to Gamrie Bay.
“This year’s deployment of a Seal Defence Crew and a rigid inflatable boat coincides with the start of the wild salmon netting season.
“Employees of Scottish Wild Salmon Company operate fixed engine nets either side of Gamrie Bay. [Owners] USAN Salmon Fisheries claimed to have shot a seal before we arrived in 2014 and we prevented any further seals being killed for the rest of the year.
“Sea Shepherd’s 2015 Seal Defence Campaign in Scotland will be significantly larger than our campaign crew of last year, already numbering over 60 volunteers.”
Sea Shepherd’s coastal patrol arrived in Gamrie Bay on Monday and will visit locations across Scotland over the next five months.
SWSC director George Pullar added: “We’re doing everything we’re entitled to legally. Our job is catching salmon and we have to protect our livelihood. We just want to go about our business.
“We’ve invested thousands to improve our nets and we’re working with the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St Andrews. We’ve altered the size of our nets and we’re doing trials to find the optimum size.”