Canada plans to cull 275,000 seals - pls. send letter

[Guest guest]

Please write a letter to Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal urging him

not to allow the seal cull. You could also add that you will boycott

all Candian goods and not visit Canada, should the cull take place.

Dhaliwal's e-mail address is Min (dfo-mpo.gc.ca). Also

" cc " your mails to the Prime Minister at pm (pm.gc.ca) and

leader of the government in the House of Commons Dan Boudria at

BoudrD (parl.gc.ca).

 

 

http://www.canoe.ca/NationalTicker/CANOE-wire.Seal-Quota.html

 

December 20, 2000

Animal rights activists accuse Fisheries Department of approving seal

cull

 

ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CP) -- The federal Fisheries

Department is ignoring its own conservation principals by

maintaining the quota for the annual harp seal hunt at

last spring's levels, animal rights activists said

Wednesday.

 

Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal said the quota for the

East Coast hunt will remain at 275,000 animals because

the harvest was so small and the population remains at

its highest level since the 1970s.

 

But the International Fund for Animal Welfare said the quota is too

high because the department's own research suggests the

population would have declined in 2000 if more than 257,000

animals were taken.

 

" This hunt has just become a cull, " said Rick Smith, the group's

national director. " It's the first time in the long history of this

issue that the government has intentionally set the quota above the

level of sustainability. "

 

However, a federal official was quick to note Canadian sealers

took only 92,000 harp seals last spring -- about one third of the

quota.

 

That means the population can sustain a larger hunt in 2001, said

Ken Jones, a federal resource management officer in Ottawa.

 

" It's a huge population out there now, " he said. " It doesn't pose a

danger to the population. "

 

A study last year concluded there are about 5.2 million harp seals

off the East Coast. That compares with about two million animals

in the 1970s.

 

" Given the low catch level in 2000, this year's harvest level is

considered to be conservation-based, " the department said in a

statement.

 

Last season's seal hunt was hurt by slumping prices for pelts and

rising fuel costs.

 

The Canadian Sealers Association said its members expect a

rebound in the 2001 season as inventories are drying up.

Meanwhile, a panel of experts is preparing a report on the state

of the industry, which is expected to be submitted to Dhaliwal early

in 2001.

 

The industry, which was almost shut down by protesters in the late

1970s, roared back to life in 1996 when the federal government

started subsidizing the sale of seal meat.

 

During the past 10 years, Canada's sealing industry has taken

1.4 million seals. But about one million of those animals were

killed in the past four years alone.

 

There are now about 12,000 licensed sealers in Atlantic Canada.

About 10,000 of them live in Newfoundland, but less than half

actually take part in the hunt.

 

Many fishermen in Newfoundland believe the eating habits of

seals threaten the recovery of troubled cod stocks, which were the

backbone of the province's economy until they collapsed in the

early 1990s.

 

 

 

 

Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products.

/