Seal Hunters Stranded in Ice

http://abclocal. go.com/kabc/ story?section= nation_world&id=5240125

An Estimated 60,000 Animals Will Be Saved Because of Deep Freeze

Apr. 24, 2007 - A rescue effort is under way to save hundreds of seal hunters whose boats have been stuck in a block of thick ice in the North Atlantic Ocean for more than a week.

The hunters' ships are stuck in a solid ice pack 140 miles long and 70 miles wide. Two huge storms trapped more than 100 vessels just as they were setting out for Canada's annual seal hunt.

"Many of the vessels have run out of provisions, fresh water, fuel in some cases," Canadian Coast Guard Capt. Windross Banton told "Good Morning America" from his ship as he engaged in the rescue effort.

Banton is trying to get food to more than 300 sailors and help their ships break free from the ice.

"Right now, outside as far as the eye can see, there is nothing but a field of ice," he said.

The biggest danger is the pressure the ice puts on the vessels. The pressure can actually lift them out of the water.

"The pans of ice and the pieces of ice are big enough and severe enough they could potentially crush the hull of the long liners," said the Canadian Coast Guard's Brian Penney.

Better weather conditions have now allowed several ships to be rescued. For some, it was in the nick of time.

"The last couple of days got scary there," said Rodney Gray, captain of the Cape John Navigator. "We were caught in ice that was getting very close to land. We never had control of anything. Wherever the ice went, we had to go."

These boats are engaged in the highly controversial seal hunt. Over the last three years, 1 million seals have been killed, and animal rights activists say they're sometimes killed in inhumane ways. Now it is the hunters who are in danger.

Animal rights activists might take solace in the fact that because so many ships have been stranded, the seal hunters will most likely not meet their quota. An estimated 60,000 seals have been spared because of the stranded ships.

____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _______

Savage Slob Sealers Sulk for lack of Smokes

 Each day that the 100 Newfoundland sealing boats lay trapped by shore fast ice, is another day that harp seal pups live without the fear of the savage clubs of the 600 sealers stranded on the floes.

The Northeasterly winds continue to push the ice towards the Newfoundland shore where the vessels have been locked in solid ice for the last 10 days. The winds show no sign of letting up.

So far fifteen of the longliners have been damaged to the point where they have been abandoned with their crews flown to shore by the coast guard or taken onboard other boats.

The ice is moving slowing towards the shore and if the vessels remain locked in the floes they could be pushed onto the beach and ground up between the ice and the rocks.

It is a fate that seal lovers around the world are eagerly hoping for and it is a situation that has them rejoicing.

“The ice rules out there.” Said Captain Paul Watson. “I know, I’ve been trapped in it myself. The Sea Shepherd ships are bigger and stronger and although we had no fear of being crushed we have been held prisoner by the ice for over a week at a time in the past. You go where the wind and the ice take you.”    

As helicopter pilot Ken Steele flew low over the boats, sealers came out on the dirty decks to wave and gesture that they need cigarettes. The ice around the boats was littered with cigarette butts. The sealers were complaining mainly that they were running short on smokes.

The rusty and dirty blood encrusted boats with sealers standing around in blood-stained and greasy clothing, puffing on cigarettes and flicking butts onto the clean ice while the floes are stained brown with the stink of human feces from the overboard toilets is a nauseating sight.

“These men are addicts and thugs.” Said Captain Watson. “uneducated, filthy, brutal lowlifes who inflict the most merciless cruelties upon seal pups and then whine and snivel when they get stuck in the ice and their tobacco addiction kicks in. And here we have the Canadian Coast Guard using Canadian tax dollars to ferry cigarettes out to these sadistic morons to keep them happy. It’s a bloody disgrace and it makes me ashamed to be a Canadian and even more ashamed that I’m a former Canadian Coast Guardsman.”

Just beyond the horizon safe from the trapped sealing boats, a large herd of seals lie contentedly on the ice. There the seal pups grow stronger each day and this year many of them may have a chance to survive thanks to the weather.

This year promises to be an economic disaster for many sealers but the government is committed to bailing them out. It’s a glorified welfare system.

“These men say they are to proud to go on the dole.” Observed Captain Watson. “Yet this is the dole by another name. They can dress it up and make it look pretty but a government hand-out is a government hand-out and there is no escaping that. These guys are plain and simply welfare bums getting their annual kicks on the taxpayers expense by bashing in the brains of baby seals.”

Jack Branswell and Ken Meaney, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, July 27, 2007
Published: 4:04 pm
A Canadian Coast Guard operation last spring to rescue 100 ice-stranded sealing ships off the coast of Newfoundland cost the federal government at least $3.4 million.

A Department of Fisheries report obtained by CanWest News Service details the month-long operation to free the vessels, which got stuck in thick ice and needed icebreakers and towing ships to move them into open waters.

The Coast Guard, which is part of Fisheries Department, had budgeted $528,000 for supporting sealing operations this year.

A fishing boat sits stuck in the ice off the coast of Newfoundland, April 18, 2007.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2007/04/18/nu-sealtour.html

Media tour on seal hunt may be 'too late,' Europeans say
Last Updated: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 5:51 PM NT


European journalists who were given a media tour of Nunavut and Newfoundland
during the annual seal hunt say the Canadian government, which organized the
tour, may have missed its chance to create positive press on the
controversial issue in Europe.

The federal department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade invited 10
journalists from Italy, Belgium, Germany, Austria and other European
countries to spend the past week and a half visiting seal hunters and
speaking with Inuit and industry officials in Nunavut and Newfoundland and
Labrador.

Ottawa's goal with the tour — which ended Tuesday in Iqaluit — was to
generate more positive coverage of the Canadian seal hunt in Europe, where
anti-sealing campaigns have prompted some countries to consider banning seal
imports out of concern the hunt is inhumane.

"It's a very good idea," Steen Johannessen of the national Danish News
Agency said Tuesday about the tour.
"Unfortunately, it might be also very too late, because it seems that the
European politicians already have determined what their positions are."

Johannessen said he learned a lot about the Inuit and Newfoundland hunts
during the visit, but said Canada should have organized a tour as soon as
several European countries announced plans earlier this year to ban seal
product imports.

"They know the history," he said. "They know what happened in '83, when the
whole seal industry crashed, when the Inuit both in Canada and in Greenland
were heavily afflicted by this."

Governments in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have said they're
considering banning imported seal products, following similar laws enacted
by Belgium. The European Union's executive commission plans to conduct a
study to see if the annual hunt is humane.

Canada, which has maintained that an import ban would hurt the livelihoods
of Inuit and Atlantic seal hunters, organized a similar media junket for
foreign reporters in early February. The idea behind such tours is similar
to that of trips that have been arranged for years by sealing opponents, who
often pay travel costs so that foreign journalists can observe the hunt.

"The thing which is, I guess, interesting [to] me as a journalist mainly is
the war of propaganda which happens between the two sides," said Ronald
Schoenhuber, a newspaper reporter from Vienna.

Weather keeps reporters from seeing much of hunt
Schoenhuber added that many Europeans still think of people clubbing
whitecoat pups on the ice when they think of the hunt.

The reporters on Ottawa's tour did not see much of the hunt for themselves,
due to bad weather.
Ottawa-based freelance correspondent Gerd Braune, who files for newspapers
in Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg, said even though the seal hunt adds
up to less than $1 million annually for Nunavut's economy, he has realized
the extra money makes a difference for Inuit families.

Still, it will take time before Canada can change people's minds on the seal
hunt, Braune said.
"I know it from my own experience [that] if I try to show it a little bit
different, what strong reaction I get from readers and even from family
members back in Germany," he said.

http://www.ccnmatth ews.com/news/ releases/ show.jsp? action=showRelea se&searchText= false&showText= all&actionFor= 647920

VIENNA, AUSTRIA--(CCNMatthe ws - April 25, 2007) - Late yesterday the Austrian Parliament voted unanimously in support of a ban on importation, processing and distribution of seal skins. IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) has been lobbying for years to achieve national bans in different countries and is also working for an European Union-wide ban.

Austrian Minister for the Environment, Josef Proll (OVP), stated that he will also work for a ban on the EU-level. National bans already exist in the USA, Mexico, Croatia and Belgium.

Despite decades of worldwide protests, the Canadian government has continued to allow the slaughter of more than a million harp seals in the last three years. In response many countries are now introducing national bans on seal products in order to close the markets and send a clear message to Canada.

"The Austrian government has joined a growing chorus in Europe calling for an end to this cruel hunt by introducing national bans," said IFAW spokesperson, Sheryl Fink.

"The Canadian government has wasted countless thousands of taxpayer dollars sending delegations to Europe in support of Canada's commercial seal hunt.

Yet Europeans are listening to the facts and the facts are that this is a
cruel, unsustainable and wasteful hunt which must be stopped, and they want no part of it."

The quota for this year's hunt has been set at 270,000 harp seals. To date, at least 195,693 harp seals have been reported killed.

Seals escape cull as hunters are trapped in ice By Fred Langan in Toronto Last Updated: 6:50am BST 24/04/2007 Thousands of baby seals were spared from Canada's annual cull yesterday after foul weather left scores of small hunting boats trapped in thick ice off the country's Atlantic coast.

Several of the boats were threatened with damage or sinking and five crews had to abandon their vessels in conditions fishermen described as the worst for more than 20 years.

As many as 500 men were stranded off the coast of Newfoundland province, only a few hundred miles north of where the Titanic was struck by ice in 1912.

The boats ran into difficulties when winds pushed ice floes towards land, hemming in some of the boats and threatening to crack their hulls open. Many of the seal hunters have been trapped for as long as 10 days and some of the boats were reportedly running out of fuel and food.

Gill Cadwell, one of the hunters, told CBC network that the ice floes had pushed his boat, the Southern Pride, high out of the water. He added: "I have never, ever experienced anything like this.''

Capt Brian Pennie, the superintendent of Coast Guard operations, said: ''There are vessels disabled and there are vessels damaged. ''There are crews that are out on the ice because there's quite a possibility that their vessels may sink.''

Helicopters have lifted at least 20 men to safety. "We will fly supplies out as needed - water, fuel and food," said Capt Pennie.

He added that the ice, between three and 10 feet thick, was so heavy that two Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers were also trapped.

Forecasters said the weather conditions would continue until the end of the week and could deteriorate further.

The hunt, described by activists as cruel and unnecessary, is in its third and largest stage.

A spokesman for the federal Fisheries and Oceans Department said about two-thirds of this year's quota of 270,000 baby harp seals had already been filled.

Reduced ice conditions further to the south meant this year's quota had been cut back from 335,000 in 2006.

The seals use the normally widespread ice floes in the Gulf of St Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean to give birth to their young. Canada insists that the annual cull is necessary to keep seal numbers down.

Seal pelts are sold to the fashion industry in Russia, China and Norway, and seal blubber is used for oil.

20/04/2007

Yesterday thanks to the pressure made by IFAW and LAV, a recent seal hunt video (recorded  in the Gulf of St.Lawrence just a few days ago) was shown to some italian members of Parliament in the press room of the italian senate and on that occasion LAV (Italy's most important animal rights organization) president Bennati has called on the minister for the Environment protection Scanio to change the temporary ban on the import of seals' skins introduced last year,  into a permanent one.

The minister has replied favourably announcing a bill to stop the import of all seal products.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:57 p.m. April 4, 2007

Sealer Calvin Dobbin pulls in lines on his sealing boat as he gets  
ready for the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence seal hunt in Rocky  
Harbour, Newfoundland, April 3, 2007. Ice blocking some of the  
harbors along the northwest coast of Newfoundland has delayed sealers  
from joining the hunt which officially opened in the southern Gulf on  
Monday.

TORONTO – Thousands fewer seals were killed in the first phase of  
Canada's controversial hunt compared to previous years, indicating  
that melting ice has depleted much of the herd in the southern Gulf  
of St. Lawrence, an official said Wednesday.

About 860 seals were killed during the three-day first phase that  
ended Wednesday night, said Fisheries Department spokesman Phil  
Jenkins, calling the catch “very low.”

Unusually warm weather has melted or thinned out much of the ice in  
the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, drowning thousands of baby seals,  
Jenkins said. Seals cannot swim during the first few weeks of life.

The quota for all three phases of this year's seal hunt is 270,000  
seals. That is 65,000 fewer than last year, a change imposed mainly  
because of the toll from the ice conditions.

The government estimated the seal population in Canada at about 5.5  
million in 2004. The Fisheries Department will conduct the next seal  
population survey next year to assess the impact of the ice conditions.

Jenkins said there were about 1.8 million seals in the 1970s. The  
population rebounded after Candada started managing its seal hunts.

“It's a conservation success story,” Jenkins said. “It's too bad that  
it's drowned out by emotional rhetoric of animal and welfare groups.”

The largest concentration of seals in the Gulf is in the northern  
part, where the second phase of the hunt began Wednesday. Ice  
conditions are normal in the north, and thousands of seals are  
expected to be killed there.

Bad weather and poor visibility limited the hunt to about 12 boats at  
the start of the second phase, Jenkins said.

About 70 percent of the seals sought in Canadian waters will be taken  
in the third stage off northern Newfoundland. An opening date has yet  
to be announced.

Animal welfare groups have condemned the government's decision to  
allow a hunt in the southern region.

Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society criticized the government for  
not issuing observer permits for the hunt in the southern Gulf.

“To us, that says there's something the Canadian government didn't  
want the public to see,” Aldworth said. “In this case, I believe it  
was the image of just a few seal pups clinging to tiny pans of ice  
and seal hunters still coming with clubs and guns and shooting and  
killing every last pup they could find.”

Fishermen sell seal pelts mostly for the fashion industry in Norway,  
Russia and China, as well as blubber for oil, earning about $78 per  
seal.

The hunt has been condemned by some celebrities, notably Paul  
McCartney, as well as French film legend Brigitte Bardot and actress  
Pamela Anderson.

The Canadian government and isolated fishing communities say they  
need the supplemental income because cod stocks have dwindled. The  
slaughter of some 335,000 seals in 2006 brought about $25 million.

The United States has banned Canadian seal products since 1972 and  
the European Union banned the white pelts of baby seals in 1983.

Registered hunters are not allowed to kill the seal pups before they  
molt their downy white fur, typically when they're 10 days to three  
weeks old.

Canadian Government Blocks Observation

WASHINGTON (April 2, 2007) - At dawn this morning, the 2007 Canadian
commercial seal hunt began in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Journalists and other observers, including the ProtectSeals team from
The Humane Society of the United States, were prevented from bearing
witness as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has refused to issue
observation permits for the first two days of the commercial seal hunt.

"The commercial seal hunt occurs in public space and observation is a
right guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, not
a privilege to be arbitrarily granted by a government department," said
Rebecca Aldworth, director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for The Humane
Society of the United States. "If we are unable to document what happens
on the ice floes, the cruelty of the seal hunt will occur in secret."

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans authorized the killing
of 270,000 seals this year. Each March, Harp seals are born on the ice
floes off the coast of Eastern Canada. They rely on the sea ice to
remain solid until they can swim. Global warming has caused sea ice in
the North Atlantic to deteriorate in recent years, and this year the ice
in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence melted before the pups were old
enough to survive in the water.

Over the past week, observers from The HSUS explored the Southern Gulf
to locate what was left of the seal nursery.

"I've witnessed the hunt for nine years, and have never seen ice
conditions this bad," continued Aldworth. "Even Canadian government
scientists are estimating up to 100 percent of the pups born in the
southern Gulf died because of the lack of ice. It is reprehensible that
the Canadian government would allow sealers to kill the few surviving
pups."

The hunt in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, where it is believed more
seals are located, is scheduled to begin April 4, at which time DFO
officials say they will issue observation permits. The HSUS ProtectSeals
team will be there to witness and document the hunt.

To pressure the Canadian government and the fishing industry to end the
seal hunt for good, The HSUS launched a boycott of Canadian seafood in
March 2005. To date, hundreds of thousands of people and thousands of
seafood distributors have pledged their support for the campaign. The
HSUS is also working overseas to close markets for seal products,
removing the financial incentive for the sealers to kills the seals.

CBC News

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced a harp seal hunt Thursday in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, but there is some question whether a hunt will be possible.

The hunt will go ahead with a reduced quota. Ice conditions in the southern gulf are the worst in years, and there was some speculation the hunt would be cancelled.

"Ice conditions in the southern gulf is an issue, but I want to put it in some perspective. The area that we are concerned about is significant, but it is one small piece of the overall hunt," said Kevin Stringer, the director general of resource management with DFO.

Seal pups cannot swim in the first weeks of life — without ice floes they drown. DFO has already said it is expecting high pup mortality this year.

With this in mind, DFO Thursday reduced the quota for the entire gulf to 270,000 seals from 325,000.

About three quarters of that hunt usually takes place in the northern gulf. DFO is allowing the hunt to proceed in the southern gulf but seal hunters, most of whom are based in the Magdalen Islands, would have to travel a long way to find a significant amount of ice to hunt on.

Conditions are better in the northern gulf, off the coast of Newfoundland.

While pup mortality is expected to be high this year, DFO described the herd as healthy, and numbered it at about 5.5 million animals. It has, however, moved ahead a survey of the herd that was planned for 2009 to 2008.

 

Quota for seal hunt reduced sharply                      http://www.winnipeg freepress. com/breakingnews /story/3927328p- 4538990c. html

OTTAWA (CP) — Canada’s decision to allow a reduced seal hunt despite the deaths of many pups this year is being condemned by animal rights groups as a recipe for the eradication of the East Coast harp seal.

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn announced Thursday that this year’s quota for the seal hunt is 270,000 animals — a reduction from last year’s catch of 335,000 seals.

Fisheries officials said during a telephone briefing from Ottawa that hunters will be able to kill seals in all traditional hunting areas, including the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, where thin and broken ice has led to the deaths of many newborns.  Fisheries Department spokesmen Kevin Stringer and Mike Hammill told reporters that pup mortality in the southern Gulf could be as high as 90 to 100 per cent this year.

Nevertheless, Stringer said the southern Gulf is open to hunters who want to look for seals amid the thin ice and already decimated population.

“It’s an appropriate number,” Stringer said of this year’s quota. “It’s consistent with our precautionary approach.”

Fisheries officials insisted the harp seal herd is healthy and abundant at about 5.5 million animals.

However, the department is accelerating a population survey of the herd, which will be carried out next year instead of 2009. “This is an important resource for Canadians and we take the sustainable management of it very seriously,” Stringer said.

The 2007 quota and management plan was greeted with howls of protest by animal rights groups who have made the annual East Coast seal hunt the focus of international condemnation.

Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society of the United States said in an interview that seals are being subjected to the same kind of political mismanagement that led to the collapse of the cod fishery.

Aldworth said Hearn, who is from Newfoundland and Labrador, has it in for harp seals. She said Hearn and the Fisheries Department appear determined to eliminate the seal, a marine mammal despised by many Atlantic fishermen as a competitor for dwindling fish stocks.

“I don’t believe the harp seal population can withstand this kind of mismanagement much longer,” Aldworth said. Sheryl Fink of the International Fund for Animal Welfare said she’s shocked Ottawa is allowing a commercial hunt in the southern Gulf despite the fact that officials acknowledge the high pup mortality.

“We could be looking at wiping out what is left of the Gulf herd this year,” Fink said. Newborn seal pups can’t swim and need solid ice on which to survive.

Although Canadian hunters no longer kill the newborn whitecoats, the vast majority of seals killed in the hunt are between three and 12 weeks of age.

Fink said figures provided by the Canadian government’s own scientists show that any catch limit set above 165,000 will see the harp seal population continue to decline.

“With harp seals facing a growing threat from global warming and poor ice conditions, continuing the hunt at the unsustainable level announced today is nothing short of irresponsible,” Fink said.

Stringer said the reduction of the quota by 65,000 animals is substantial. The vast majority of the hunt this year, as in past years, will take place off the northeastern coast of Newfoundland in an area called the Front.

Seventy per cent of the quota will be taken on the Front. The remaining 30 per cent will come from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, mostly the northern Gulf where ice conditions are better than they are in the south. The one-year quota includes allocations of 2,000 seals for personal use and 4,860 seals for aboriginal initiatives.

Stringer said there will be no change this year in the rules for observers who want to watch and report on the hunt. However, it is much more difficult to observe the hunt off Newfoundland because of the greater distances involved.

Traditionally, animal rights groups and news reporters observe the hunt in the southern Gulf, between Iles de la Madeleine and Cape Breton Island.

Stringer said the department has had fewer applications this year for observer permits, which are designed to keep observers and hunters at safe distances from each other.

Poor ice scales back Canada seal hunt March 30, 2007 - 6:49AM http://www.theage. com.au/news/ World/Poor- ice-scales- back-Canada- seal-hunt/ 2007/03/30/ 1174761701478. html

The number of young harp seals that Canadian hunters can kill off the east coast this year will be cut by a quarter, mainly because of poor ice conditions where the animals give birth, officials say.

The federal fisheries ministry also promised stricter controls on hunters to stop them killing more than their quota. The seals are either shot or clubbed to death on ice floes in a hunt that animal rights protesters say is inhumane.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans set this year's seal quota at 270,000 animals, down from 335,000 in 2006. It estimates the east coast harp seal herd is around 5.5 million.

The hunt had been set to begin on March 28 but no start date has yet been announced. The first stage takes place on ice floes to the south of the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Officials and animal rights activists said earlier this week there was very little ice to the south of the islands and that many more pups than usual had drowned. The seals use the ice floes to give birth to their young.

"There are poorer ice conditions than usual in the southern Gulf ... the area that we are concerned about is significant but it is one small piece of the overall hunt," said Kevin Stringer of the ministry.

"The decrease this year is very substantial ... we think it's an important move and is sustainable. "

The hunt around the Magdalen Islands usually accounts for around 20 per cent of the overall catch. Most seals are killed off the coast Newfoundland, further to the north.

Stringer said hunters would still be allowed to kill seals south of the Magdalen Islands.

"It's appalling ... they're actually talking about allowing the hunt in the southern Gulf to proceed to wipe out the few remaining seal pups there," said Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society of the United States.

"I think it shows that the Canadian government has a clear agenda to exterminate seals and nothing is going to divert them from that course," she told Reuters.

Stringer said it was possible that around 90 per cent of the pups born in the southern Gulf this year could die but said if this were the case, it would not necessarily have a big impact on overall seal herd health.

"Seals pup for 15 or 20 years so what happens in one specific part of the hunt in one specific year needs to be considered in this broader perspective, " he told reporters on a conference call.

Stringer said that to ensure seal numbers stayed healthy, hunters who caught more than their share would have their quota cut next year. The amount of time hunters can spend on the ice would be cut to allow inspectors to make sure quotas had not been exceeded, he added.

Ottawa also decided that the next proper survey of harp seal numbers would be carried out in 2008 and not in 2009 as originally planned.

"With harp seals facing a growing threat from global warming and poor ice conditions, continuing the hunt at the unsustainable level announced is nothing short of irresponsible, " said Sheryl Fink of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Activists Protest Canadian Seal Hunt                     TORONTO - Thursday March 29, 2007 5:28 pm

Canada announced Thursday that hunters can kill 270,000 harp seals this spring, despite environmentalists' protests that thousands of pups too young to swim haveallen through ice thinned by global warming, jeopardizing the stability of the population. Animal-rights groups worldwide condemned the hunt as inhumane.

The traditional spring hunt is key to the livelihood of Canadian seal hunters and aboriginal peoples. To protect the seal population in Canada - which now stands at about 5.5 million - fisheries officials announced a sharp reduction in the number that can be killed, down from last year's quota of 335,000 animals.

"These decisions are guided by principles of conservation, " Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Loyola Hearn said in a statement. "I also want to ensure that the people who depend on this resource for their livelihood will benefit from it over the long-term."

Hearn acknowledged the thin ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where animal rights groups have complained that pups unable to swim are dying by the thousands. He said only 20 percent of the hunt takes place in the Gulf and that ice conditions in the Northern Gulf and off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador remain good.

There was no announcement of the opening date of the hunt, which has been getting later each year due to the thinning ice and a lack of pups. The hunt opened on March 26 last year.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare and the Humane Society of the United States, both of which have long led international campaigns to end the centuries-old hunt, immediately condemned the new hunting quota.

"With harp seals facing a growing threat from global warming and poor ice conditions, continuing the hunt at the unsustainable level announced today is nothing short of irresponsible, " IFAW senior researcher Sheryl Fink said in a statement. "This decision has no basis in science or conservation. "

Research indicates that killing more than 165,000 harp seals would make the population decline, the group said. Federal fisheries officials counter that the overall seal population has tripled since the 1970s. Environmentalists say it is shrinking in the southern part of the Gulf, which bodes ill for the region overall.

Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society, who is in Newfoundland preparing to observe the hunt when it begins, said flyovers of the region indicate that thousands of seal pups have drowned because of the poor ice, which conservationists blame on global warming.

"The entire seal population has been essentially swept out into the Atlantic," she said in a telephone interview. "The ice has melted; it's literally just slush out there. We looked for those hundreds of thousands of pups and we found just three surviving."

Aldworth has been observing the hunt for nine years and has repeatedly clashed with fisheries officials and was banned from observation last year after allegedly interfering with the hunt.

Fisheries officials said Thursday they would issue observation permits this year, but only if they felt it was safe for helicopters to land on the ice.

Aldworth says she has witnessed seals being skinned alive and other "unimaginable cruelty."

The United States has banned Canadian seal products since 1972 and the European Union banned the white pelts of baby seals in 1983.

The European Commission said earlier this month that it would launch a study to see whether seal hunting in Canada is carried out humanely, though it has so far rejected calls for an EU-wide ban on the import of adult seal pelts and other products.

 

And here below are some news about Harbour seals in British Columbia:

 

Call for cull of harbour seals to protect salmon runs

Marcel Tetrault Comox Valley Echo Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Local sport fishermen are calling for a cull of harbour seals that are making
it difficult for the run of summer chinook salmon in the Puntledge River to
reestablish itself.

"What we have is we have this endangered chinook run and we also have really,
really, really low numbers of steelhead and cutthroat trout," said Larry
Peterson, co-chair of the Puntledge River Restoration Committee.

Peterson said the seals are not only eating adult summer chinook and
steelhead spawning in the river but also the fry and smolts from the hatchery that are
making their way out to the ocean.

"They're picking off millions of fry or smolts going out," said Peterson.
"It's just an absolute buffet table for them."

He estimates that there are between 20 and 30 seals that are causing the
damage.

"That's just an absolute guess," he said. "But it's way too many anyway."

Legislation early in the 1970s made it illegal to kill marine mammals. Fines
for shooting or harassing harbour seals could go as high as $100,000.

That legislation ended the era of culls of and bounties on harbour seals.
Their population has recovered from less than 10,000 at that time to perhaps 10
times as many today.

Marilyn Joyce, the marine mammal coordinator with the Department of Fisheries
and Oceans, said there is a big difference between the seals feeding in the
Puntledge River and those that feed out in the ocean.

Seals that feed in the ocean, said Joyce, form an important part of a complex
ecosystem and any cull of those populations is definitely not being
considered.

"They do keep some of the salmon predators in balance," she said. "At the
same time (the seals) are food for transient killer whales. It's a complex web."

But the seals feeding in the Puntledge would not be there under natural
conditions.

"The situation on the Puntledge is different in that they have habituated
under the bridge," said Joyce. "We have an artificial situation that allows them
to be predators where they naturally wouldn't be predators. The key thing with
this situation is that it is very different than you might find seals in any
other estuary along the coast."

One of the reasons the seals are so successful on the Puntledge is the light
that is cast over the river from the bridge. The seals come by at night and
use the light to easily find fish to feed on.

"We've seen them lining up under the lights," said Peterson. "At night on
high tide in April and May they see all these young fry and smolts coming down
river and they just slurp them right up like mad."

Joyce said seals would not normally feed on smolts or fry because they are
just too small.

"There's not enough bang for your buck," she said. "But when you have a large
release, particularly coming from a hatchery, and you have these lighting
conditions, then the seals find there is some efficiency in being able to
actually make a meal of them.

"That's really the question, are there seals there now that could potentially
have an impact on the returning stocks of summer chinook. At this point all I
can say to you is that a number of questions are under review. A final
decision has not been made."

DFO is also considering other non-lethal methods of dealing with the seals,
such as a type of electric fence that would keep them away from the
concentrations of smolts and fry. They are also looking at the possibility of altering
the light patterns under the bridge so the seals are not able to consume so many
fry so quickly.

But Peterson said that his previous experience with alternative methods has
not been positive.

"We figure they have to do a seal cull right away in the next two months,"
said Peterson. "I think they (previously) spent over $1 million on these so-so
programs that got no results. Then they went down two years in a row, 1997 and
1998, with inexpensive bullets and shot 50 seals.

"It's a horrible way to go, but we humans are good at that, letting things
get out of balance. It's a matter of establishing some kind of balance, that's
all, and giving the fish opportunities.

"It's the same principle as black bears. If there's a black bear tearing you
back yard apart, the conservation officer comes and puts it down. It's the
same sort of principle.

"If we can give them good habitat out in the gulf, have at her folks. But
when you come into our river mouth, you're not in your territory any more."



Puntledge seal cull requested to preserve salmon

By Colleen Dane Record Staff

Mar 28 2007 Killing seals in the Puntledge River is an ugly idea, but a
necessary one, say groups trying to recover salmon stocks being decimated by the
hungry and opportunistic mammals.

“Yes, it’s not good — yes, it’s not politically correct — but it’s
important,” said Larry Peterson, a chair of the Puntledge River Restoration
Committee, who is also a director on the Comox Valley Environmental Council.

News of a potential seal cull in the river hit headlines across B.C. earlier
this week as a report was presented showing a huge increase in the population
of the animals. Members of the various local groups came out with their
request for a cull, to protect specifically the spring chinook that are being
snacked on both on their way out to sea as smolt, and on their way in as adults,
females often carrying roe with thousands more fish.

“In the spring it has a terrible impact,” said Peterson about the seals. “
They’ll take 30 per cent of the summer chinook — and that’s an endangered
species.” It’s a sight that’s terribly disappointing for those trying to
regenerate the fish populations — looking under the lights of the Fifth or 17th street
bridges, or those from the tennis courts of Lewis Park and watching the seals
line up for their meals.

“It’s a real conflict,” said Peterson. “Unfortunately, we control the
balance, and it’s getting out of balance.” Consultation has already started, and
has included various environmental groups, the Department of Fisheries and
Oceans, the local First Nations and others.

This isn’t the first time that a seal cull has been debated in the Comox
Valley. About 10 years ago, roughly 60 seals were eliminated from the Puntledge
River after government and local groups had tried numerous other determents.

They tried building a fence, which the seals got through. They relocated some
of the seals to the west coast of Vancouver Island, but they returned within
a few days, said Peterson.

This cull they’re calling for, he said, is about getting the number of seals
back in line — and then implementing a predator plan for the river —
tentatively including strategies like changing the lights that help night hunting for
the seals, or looking at sound deterrents. While it’s not official yet,
Peterson said the discussions they’ve had tentatively looked at April or May as the
time to cull around 50 seals this year. In the most recent count, it’s
estimated there are 52,000 harbour seals in the Georgia Strait.

Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun,  Published: Monday, March 26, 2007

Sport fishermen are calling for a renewed cull of harbour seals near
Courtenay on Vancouver Island just as research shows the species has increased 10-fold as a result of  protection in local  waters.     Legislation in Canada and the U.S. in the early 1970s made it illegal to kill marine mammals without a permit, ending an era of culls and bounties and giving rise to today's thriving harbour seal  population.

The population is now relatively stable at 52,000 harbour seals using 650 haul-out sites (beach
 locations where seals rest) in the Strait of Georgia and Washington state's Puget Sound, according
to Peter Olesiuk, a research biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Nanaimo.

 Harbour seals' population has stabilized over the years. Chuck Russell, Vancouver Sun Files

 Olesiuk will deliver a presentation to a Vancouver marine conference this week showing the harbour
 seal population in local waters has increased about 10-fold between the early-1970s and mid-1990s.

 Gerry Scott, with the Comox local of the Sport Fish Advisory Board, said in an interview that
 fishermen are not calling for a widespread cull of harbour seals throughout the Strait of Georgia, but
 feel it is necessary on the Puntledge River to protect a summer run of spawning chinook that is
 down to a few thousand fish.

 He said the seals show up at night under the bridge and use the city lights to gobble up young
 fish as they come downstream in spring.

 "It's amazing, they literally turn upside down and start eating. We have to ensure the survival of
 those fish," he said.

 Andrew Trites, director of marine mammal research at the Fisheries Centre at the University of
 B.C., said salmon runs decline for a variety of reasons, often directly the result of human actions.

 He's seen no hard research to show the Puntledge River cull of a decade ago achieved anything.

 Seals are easy scapegoats because they can be seen following salmon during spawning migrations in
 the fall, he said. People fail to realize seals may be of "net benefit" to salmon because they eat
 a greater number of hake throughout the year. "Hake are one of the largest predators of salmon,"
 he said.

Harbour seals aren't the only ones that benefited from the marine mammal protection legislation.

Steller sea lions have increased steadily in local waters, and are estimated at 500 to 1,500,
 Olesiuk reports. It is a species of special concern in B.C., officially threatened in Alaska.

 California sea lions have extended their non-breeding range northward, with counts fluctuating at
 1,000 to 2,500 since the 1980s. Both species of sea lion were rare in local waters prior to the
 early 1970s.

 Northern elephant seals that breed off California and generally forage offshore are also being
 observed in small numbers at Race Rocks near Victoria. The species had almost been hunted to
 extinction.

 The Fisheries Department culled a total of 52 harbour seals in 1997 and 1998 to benefit chinook
 salmon on the Puntledge River, and is now in discussion with local stakeholders, including sport
 fishermen and first nations, who are pushing for the controversial management tactic to be repeated.

 Bruce Adkins, the department's area chief of oceans habitat enhancement for the south coast, said
 harbour seals position themselves beneath the bridge over the Courtenay River downstream of the
 Puntledge and eat juvenile salmon going downriver and adults returning to spawn.

 He said returns were improved after the cull a decade ago, but noted the situation is clouded by
 the fact other rivers in the area that had no seal cull also had good production. He said more
 research is needed to better assess the potential benefits of another cull.

 Trites noted that a seal cull designed to save salmon in Alaska backfired on the Copper River in
 the 1960s when the population of starry flounders (a species of flatfish) on which the seals fed
 exploded. That in turn led to a collapse of the razor clam fishery, a favourite prey of the
flounders.

 Paul Adams, executive director of the B.C. Wildlife Federation, said harbour seal populations
 remain a controversial topic among anglers.

 The federation remains committed to a scientific-based management approach to all species, he
 said, urging both senior governments to devote more money to wildlife