I loved the concept of this-- in a (seemingly 19th century-ish) society that has discovered selkies, of course they're going to find a way to mechanize the fishing of them and that's going to lead to over-fishing! It's the kind of thing where I've never thought of it, but it makes perfect sense. This was one of those stories that left me really wondering what the rest of this world was like-- is this an all-male society, so they need to get wives from the sea? Or do they have non-selkie women, and the men with selkie wives are more like guys in our society who marry mail-order brides because "American women aren't submissive enough" or whatever sexist reasoning they give? Is this a generally super sexist society (as Dwango surmised), or are these guys the worst of the worst, sexism-wise, and so can't find a wife except by fishing for her? Do the selkie wives have children with the men? So many questions, and I really like a story that gets me thinking like this.