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Dear Sust-mar people,
I feel it is really important that people know about the attitudes of some
government officials who are responsible for (un)regulating the seal hunt.
As you will see, Newfoundland's Minister of Fisheries is not just
uninformed, he is full of hatred towards seals... probably others too.
The seal hunt is yet another example of DFO mismanagement. (I could also
send a recent posting on the lumpfish disaster to anyone who would like it
as well.) I must add though, that there are some great people working for
DFO as well; but still so much needs to be done to save corals, seals, fish,
seaweeds, etc. growing off our coasts.
all the best, Jan Slakov (902) 837-4980, Weymouth, NS B0W 3T0
PS If anyone is interested in finding a speaker on oceans issues, just get
in touch with me; the NSEN oceans caucus has several people willing and able
to oblige. And don't forget the EAC's Hemlock Circus Theatre troupe, which
can perform for school and other groups.
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Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 17:26:25 -0400 (AST)
From: Martin Willison <willison@is.dal.ca>
Subject: seal note
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Canada Hitting Harp Seals Hard
by Martin Willison, Dalhousie University
Management of Canada's harp seal hunt is a contentious issue
at the best of times. It is not helped by Newfoundland's
anti-seal fisheries minister, who stated on May 4th 1998
(source: Hansard, Newfoundland House of Assembly):
Mr Efford: As far as the IFAW is concerned, Mr Speaker, they
do not exist. They are not a topic of my conversation
or thoughts whatsoever. I do not care what they think.
But, Mr Speaker, I would like to see the 6 million seals,
or whatever number is out there, killed and sold, or
destroyed or burned. I do not care what happens to them.
The fact is that the markets are not there to sell more
seals; 286,000 were hunted and sold. If there was a
market for more ....
Mr Speaker: Order, please!
Mr Efford: If there was a market for more seals, the commercial
sealers would be hunting and selling seals. The special
allowance was for the personal use of sealers, that they
could take six seals for their personal use. What they do
with the pelts, Mr Speaker, is up to them. They cannot
sell them because the markets are not there. What they
wanted was to have the right to go out and kill the seals.
They have that right, and the more they kill the better
I will love it.
In December 1999, Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans
announced a harp seal commercial hunt quota of 275,000 for the
year 2000. This is the same quota as for the last 2 years, and
may represent a total human-caused kill rate of up to 500,000
seals per year in the western Atlantic alone when all other
anthropogenic mortalities are included (of which the unregulated
Greenland hunt is the largest).
It is illegal for a Canadian sealer to kill a seal and not land
it, but this does happen for a variety of reasons, making the
Canadian kill rate very difficult to estimate, but clearly higher
than the quota.
On December 14th 1999 the Newfoundland Court of Appeal decided
that many matters associated with governance of the seal hunt,
including all matters relating to processing and sales, lie
within the jurisdiction of the Province of Newfoundland, not
the Government of Canada, as previously. There are serious,
but unclear, implications for conservation.
The harp seal herd is currently large, but probably never
reached 6 million. It may have topped 5 million at one
point in the mid 1990s, but no new census results have been
made available in recent years, and even the best scientific
estimates are based more on population modelling than on
measuring population size.
In the early 1990s the cod fishery collapsed as a result of
over-fishing and Canadian taxpayers, who had for years
subsidized the fishery and thereby helped it collapse, then
bailed out the fishermen. We were still doing this when the
landed value of the Newfoundland crab and shrimp fisheries
(which took off after cod collapsed) exceeded the highest landed
value ever recorded for the cod fishery. Despite this, some
people continue to attempt to blame seals for socio-economic
problems in Newfoundland.
I heard John Efford speak at Dalhousie University, and I asked
him why a shark fishery was permitted, since some sharks eat
seals. He said there were no sharks in Newfoundland waters, to
the audible disbelief of a couple of marine fish scientists.
In fact, white sharks and Greenland sharks feed on seals in waters
around Newfoundland and sharks are caught by Newfoundland
fishermen.
Among the consequences of the collapse of cod and haddock
fisheries on Canada's east coast is that fisheries for other
species have been expanded, sometimes with government incentives.
Some of these are being managed just as disastrously (e.g.
lumpfish and white hake). Harp seals, it appears, are being
treated similarly.
Sources:
1. D.M. Lavigne (1999), Marine Mammal Science, vol 15,
pages 871-878
2. D.W. Johnston et al., in press, Conservation Biol.
3. A. Addario, IFAW, personal communication
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