remember the harp seal slaughter?

[Guest guest]

Canada expands seal kill as environmentalists fume

 

OTTAWA - Canada increased sharply the number of seals that can be killed

over the next three years yesterday, dismissing protests from

environmentalists who say this will have a devastating effect on the seal

population.

Fisheries and Oceans Minister Robert Thibault said hunters would be allowed

to kill a total of 975,000 seals over the next three years, with the maximum

catch in any one year set at 350,000 animals.

Last year hunters killed a record 307,000 juvenile seals, almost all of them

harp seals. Until now Ottawa has set annual limits but said it had changed

to a three-year system to help the sealing industry.

Thibault said the kill was being expanded because the harp seal population

had hit a record 5.2 million animals, up from 1.8 million in 1970. If all

975,000 seals were killed, the population in 2006 would be 4.7 million, he

said.

" Seals are in abundance ... seal management is founded on sound conservation

principles to ensure harvest opportunities now and in the future, " he told a

news conference.

Gory pictures of helpless young seals being beaten to death on ice floes

have turned the annual hunt into a public relations nightmare for the

federal government, which is also under pressure from the sealing industry.

Ottawa says the kill protects depleted fish stocks (??? Who’s depleting fish

stocks???) and provides jobs in economically depressed Newfoundland (Oakland

needs some more jobs, too. Maybe Mayor Brown should pay the rioters to

vandalize stores every week—just think of all the new jobs that’ll

create!!!). The province's prosperous cod fishery collapsed a decade ago and

some fishermen say seals are partly to blame.

The seal hunt, which usually begins in mid March in the Gulf of St Lawrence

and continues for another two months, is by far the largest kill of marine

mammals in the world.

Thibault dismissed complaints from the International Fund for Animal Welfare

(IFAW) that increasing the kill would devastate the seal population.

" There are no signs to that effect, " he said, prompting IFAW campaigners to

announce they would be launching a new overseas effort to focus attention on

the kill.

" We are outraged, " IFAW seals campaigner Rebecca Aldworth told Reuters. " He

(Thibault) has turned his back on the international condemnation this

slaughter has brought upon this country.

" Certainly this is not a decision based on any existing science...We're not

going to stand by and watch the harp seal population wiped out for political

reasons, " she said, accusing the government of trying to deflect attention

from Ottawa's alleged mismanagement of fish stocks.

Last month the IFAW said the ice cover off the Atlantic coast, where seals

give birth, was rapidly thinning and cited evidence that mortality rates

were rising.

Seal killers welcomed Thibault's decision, saying it would help bring

stability to the industry.

" I think we've got something now we can really work with... this

announcement is breathing some new life into where we're going with the seal

killing industry, " Canadian Sealers Association executive director Tina

Fagan told reporters.

One bright spot for environmentalists was that Thibault rejected a request

from seal killers to scrap a 15-year-old ban on hunting some very young

seals.

Story by David Ljunggren

Story 4/2/2003

 

Note: the word “cull” was culled from this report and replaced with the word

“kill,” and the word “sealer” was replaced with the phrase “seal killer,”

for the sake of accuracy.

 

Take Action:

If you can’t go to Canada to stop the slaughter directly, at least send an

email or write a letter to the “Honourable” Robert G. Thibault,

Min

 

House of Commons, Minister, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Parliament

Buildings, Wellington Stree, Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA, K1A0A6.

 

 

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