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URGENT: CANADIAN SEAL "HARVEST" QUOTA EXCESSIVE Recent scientific studies by David Lavigne and colleagues of the International Marine Mammal Association show that the rate at which harp seals are being killed by hunters in Canada is unsustainable. Please write to Canada's Minister of Fisheries & Oceans to express your concern. Since 1971 Canada has set a quota for a commercial (i.e. non- aboriginal) harp seal hunt, conducted mostly in Newfoundland and Labrador. In some years the total kill rate has been less than the increment resulting from births, rendering the hunt sustainable, but substantially increased quotas were approved for the hunts in 1996-1999. Lavigne calculates that the "total removals" from the population (i.e. the numbers of animals killed by humans by all means) in the 1998 season alone lay somewhere between 400,000 and 550,000, for a total 3-year (1996-98) mean-estimate kill of around 1.4 million individuals. The total population size is not currently known, but in 1994 it was estimated to be 4.8 million and exhibiting an annual "replacement yield" of about 287,000. Canada calculates the quota by using a population model based on this 1994 census and the reported landed catch from the commercial hunt. This method ignores the hunt carried out in Greenland (about 100,000 killed), the Inuit landings, fishery by-catches, and animals that are shot and die at sea. By using an inadequate method to calculate kill rates, Canada seems to be conducting a seal cull presented as a sustainable hunt. Please write, as soon as possible (and before January 2000) to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to request that Canada's policy on setting seal hunt quotas be revised immediately, and the quota lowered. Please note that this request will not detract from subsistence seal hunting by Inuit and other First Nation groups, whose hunts are based on rights not quotas. Indeed, by helping to maintain the seal herd, First Nation hunting rights will be better protected. Please write to: The Honorable Herb Dhaliwal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans 200 Kent Street Ottawa Ontario, Canada K1A 0E6 AND/OR FAX: (613) 995-2962 EMAIL: min@dfo-mpo.gc.ca [Ed: Why not send a fax via email for free? <remote-printer.Herb_Dhaliwal@16139952962.iddd.tpc.int> -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- The preceding message was posted on Sustainable Maritimes (sust-mar) -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- A word from our technicians ... Many subscribers have limited space for incoming email. Please remember to limit the SIZE of your message. Messages longer than 10K cannot be posted. CCN users cannot read messages written in html, or with other bells and whistles. Please send messages to sust-mar in basic TEXT format. Finally, please respect the privacy of others. Sust-mar messages are seen by a lot of people and are accessible in our archives to anyone in the world. Therefore, if you are forwarding a message that was sent to you, please delete the names of other recipients before forwarding to sust-mar. Similarly, if your message is going to other places, please send sust-mar a separate copy. Our ~150 readers are worth the extra seconds it takes! :)
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