Baby seals drown from melting ice as Canada hunt begins
Pop an antidepressant before reading this: Canada has reduced this year's quota for its annual harp seal hunt by 20 percent, to a mere 270,000 -- not because of pressure from conservationists and animal activists, but because thousands of baby seals have already fallen through melting ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and drowned. Global warming strikes again! In some areas, the pup mortality rate may be reaching 100 percent -- before the hunters even arrive. "The pups can't swim for very long. They need stable ice," says a Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans spokesperson. Only two (out of about 40) hunting boats set sail into the southern gulf at the start of hunting season on Monday. "There weren't many seals there to hunt," says the spokesperson. The baby seals are clubbed or shot, then sold for their prized white fur and seal oil. One Newfoundlander says the locals "need the seal hunt to make ends meet." Activists say the hunters often flout the government quota, and are demanding that Canada terminate a hunt they call cruel.
source: The Washington Post, Doug Struck, 04 Apr 2007
source: The Independent, David Usborne, 02 Apr 2007
source: The Age, Associated Press, 04 Apr 2007
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Comments
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robrmcc Posted 4:28 am
04 Apr 2007
Below is a link to a Canadian government web site regarding the seal hunt.
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/seal-phoque/myth_e.htm
Rob McC
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GoodCheer Posted 5:46 am
04 Apr 2007
The seal hunt is also probably the most studied and most effectively managed hunts in the world, evidenced by the fact that populations have been brought back from a level considered too low (1.8 million in the 70s) to 5.5 million, and have been kept reasonably stable at that level by design. It is ecologically sound and sustainable.
Nat
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GoodCheer Posted 5:52 am
04 Apr 2007
"We don't know if it's weather or climate. But we have seen a trend in the ice conditions in the last four or five years," said Phil Jenkins(...)
is cautious rather than in denial, wouldn't you say?
cheers
Nat
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GoVegan Posted 1:46 am
05 Apr 2007
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girlonfoot Posted 3:40 am
05 Apr 2007
These are mammals, killed by the hundreds of thousands each year for their fur. For fashion. In the most cruel way (clubbed with a hakipik (a hooked club) - or shot (which also means wounded and lost in the water). It is a difficult hunt to document completely because of the remote areas where the hunt occurs. Also, the Deparment of Fisheries of Ocean is not a unbiased source of information on the commerical seal hunt, given it has the conflicting mandate of promoting and expanding the sealing industry in addition to management of the seal populations. Before it came to light this last week that hundreds of thousands of seal pups already died in the Gulf of St. Lawerence this year, Kevin Singer of the Fisheries agency said "the seal herd is and remains healthy and abundant."
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dbeerslayer Posted 2:58 pm
10 Apr 2007
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amc89 Posted 1:53 am
12 Apr 2007
But now they allow a seal to be killed once it starts shedding even a little bit of white fur. If you view the 2007 footage of the slaughter on the website of Humane Society International-Canada, you'll see that "ragged jackets" (seals just beginning to shed their white fur) are being killed. The vast majority of the pups being killed, whether "ragged jackets" or "beaters" (seal pups that have lost all of their white fur), have not yet had their first solid meal or taken their first swim-and they literally have no escape from the hunters. So this is definitely not a "fair chase" hunt. Well over ninety-five percent of the seals killed are under three months of age. For an animal who may live more than 35 years, and doesn't reach sexual maturity until about 5 years old, these are "babies" or "pups" by any standard.
Many scientists agree current kill levels are not sustainable. A 2006 study by Professor Stephen Harris from the School of Biological Sciences at Bristol University asserts that "the Canadian management regime for harp seals does not apply a precautionary principle and threatens the survival of seal populations."
While awareness of what really happens at the seal hunt is increasing in the U.S., Europe and around the world, unfortunately in Canada, the media (which is often government-subsidized, like the CBC) gives a "sanitized" version of the annual harp seal slaughter. Though international journalists, independent veterinarians, European parliamentarians, and observers from animal protection organizations routinely witness and document seals left to suffocate in their own blood, conscious seal pups dragged across the ice floes with boat hooks, and conscious seals reacting in pain as they are skinned alive, the Canadian media rarely airs or prints any of this footage. Thus, many Canadians do not even realize how cruel, and unsustainable, this tax-payer subsidized seal slaughter truly is. And they don't often realize how poorly the Canadian goverment regulates the slaughter. This type of behavior from the Canadian media is disappointing from a nation that prides itself on being so much more open, fair, and compassionate than other nations.
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