TOM RIDEOUT:



TOM RIDEOUT:

Get the facts

CBC News Viewpoint | April 13, 2006 |

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Tom Rideout is minister of fisheries and aquaculture for the government of Newfoundland and Labrador. He is also a former premier of the province and a former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party there. He served an earlier term as minister of fisheries, from 1985 to 1989.

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I ask readers to consider the following before making any final judgement on the East Coast seal fishery. This fishery has been proven to be humane, sustainable, and well regulated.

Each year Newfoundland and Labrador, other Atlantic provinces and Quebec are subjected to international ad campaigns and the spread of erroneous information. The well-funded campaign mounted by animal rights groups has seriously undermined the sealing industry in this province. It continues to mislead people by publicizing outdated and illegal practices that are no longer relevant and no longer exist.

Animal rights activists continue to focus on the visual appeal of the whitecoat harp seal, negatively influencing millions of people, even though this harvest is no longer permitted. In fact, these organizations know that these seals have been excluded from the harvest for more than two decades. Furthermore, the annual seal fishery is very sustainable and the population is not in any way threatened. The seal population on Canada’s East Coast is estimated at nearly six million animals, the highest level in decades. The harp seal population has tripled since 1970, with nearly one million animals born each year. The harvest is based on sound scientific evidence on healthy populations.

Humane methods followed, monitored

Research of the modern day harvest by veterinary experts has concluded that seals are killed in a humane manner. Our seal fishery is highly regulated and is being closely monitored to ensure that it is conducted in accordance with the best established practices. It is no less humane than the methods used to sustain a continual supply of product for meat departments in local grocery stores. More than 90 per cent of sealers off Quebec and Atlantic Canada use firearms to kill seals.

Professional sealers in Newfoundland and Labrador conduct their work with respect for the resource they harvest and do so with a strong view to maximum utilization. A variety of food products have been developed and are being marketed successfully. These include sausages and other meat products. As well, omega-3 oil, derived from blubber, is marketed worldwide as a health supplement. As you may be aware, omega-3 seal oil has been linked to health benefits, with positive results in the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Other products include leather and fur for newly developing garment industries in Russia, Asia and other world markets.

Many rural regions depend on the traditional way of life, including the seal harvest, for their economic survival. The seal industry is now worth more than $45 million to the local economy and in the current year, the seal fishery will provide a significant portion of the income of more than 4,000 fishermen and plant workers. This industry sustains their lives, puts food on their tables and clothes on their backs.

Human role essential to balance of ecosystem

Taking seal harvesting out of the marine ecosystem throws it out of balance. Humans are part of this ecosystem and have a responsibility to the environment. Seal herds have a significant impact on marine resources: researchers estimated that the seals consumed about 3.5 million metric tonnes (MT) of marine species in Atlantic Canada in 1996, of which 82 per cent is attributed to harp seals. These estimates show that consumption is threatening already dwindling fish stocks, with seals in Newfoundland and Labrador consuming 250,000 MT of turbot, 800,000 MT of capelin and 142,000 MT of Atlantic cod. We must also be concerned about other species such as salmon, which are also in serious decline. This type of imbalance in the ecosystem calls for new approaches to fisheries management.

Given the significance of the seal fishery to this province, economically and ecologically, I ask that you consider this information before passing any judgment on the East Coast seal fishery. The harvest is of great importance to thousands of individuals and has represented a way of life for more than 500 years.

REBECCA ALDWORTH:

Hunt is outdated

CBC News Viewpoint | April 19, 2006 |

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Rebecca Aldworth is the director of Canadian Wildlife Issues for the Humane Society of the United States. She is observing her eighth hunt this year. She and a team of others opposed to the hunt go to witness and document what happens.

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To me, there were many wonderful things about growing up in a Newfoundland fishing outport. The landscape was spectacular and the people were warm, charismatic and friendly.

But there was also a darker side — like the way some people treated animals. Unwanted kittens were often tied in garbage bags weighed down with rocks and tossed into the ocean to drown. Some families took in puppies in the summer, only to shoot them in the fall when they became more expensive to keep. There were the teenagers who used wild animals and birds as target practice. In outport Newfoundland, animals were often seen as disposable.

And then there was the seal hunt — involving the same mentality but on a larger scale. Each spring as I made snow forts and roamed the woods with the local children, fishermen went to sea and slaughtered newborn seals by the hundreds of thousands, in front of their mothers, for their fur.

Back then, the public overwhelmingly condemned the industry. Global trade bans and seafood boycotts forced the Canadian government to prohibit the killing of newborn seal pups — bringing the hunt to a virtual standstill for almost 10 years. But in the mid 1990s, the federal government threw money at any "fishery" it could develop — and massive subsidies allowed the sealing industry to rebuild. Today, sealing advocates will tell you that the hunt has changed entirely. But I've researched the industry for the past decade and observed the hunt at close range for eight of those years. And it is clear this is the same cruel and needless slaughter it has always been.

It's still a hunt for baby seals. Newborn seals are only protected for the first few days of their lives, and official Canadian government kill reports prove 99 percent of the seals killed last year were just two months of age or less.

It is still a wasteful hunt for fur. A recent CBC report noted that while 290,000 seal skins were landed in Newfoundland last season, most of the carcasses were left on the ice to rot. The president of the Canadian Sealers Association said, "If there was a market for the seal carcasses, I'm a firm believer that it would be brought ashore. But, being no market, if you got to dump, it's much better dumping it out there than it is to dump it in the harbours."

It's still horribly cruel. Each year, independent journalists, scientists and parliamentarians document unacceptable levels of cruelty, including conscious pups stabbed with hooks and dragged across the ice, wounded seals left to choke on their own blood, and even seals skinned alive. In 2001, an independent team of veterinarians who studied the hunt concluded that in 42 percent of cases they studied, the seals had likely been skinned alive while conscious. The images of this hunt have already convinced many countries including Italy, Belgium, Mexico, Luxembourg, Croatia and Greenland to stop their trade in Canadian seal products.

The hunt is still unsustainable. Today's kill levels meet and even exceed those of the 1950s and 60s, when sealers nearly wiped out the harp seal population. These days, harp seals have to contend with the new threat of climate change, their pups dying in high numbers as their ice habitat melts before they are weaned. And while the Department of Fisheries and Oceans tries to tell us there are millions of seals out there, we should remember this is the same department that assured us cod stocks were plentiful when they'd been fished down to one percent of their historic levels.

The seal hunt still brings in very little money. While the fishing industry is worth over $5 billion each year, the landed value of the seal hunt hovers between just $6 and $16 million — it could easily be phased out by the federal government. You would think there would be a strong incentive to do so. In the past year alone, an ongoing boycott of Canadian seafood that will continue until the seal hunt stops has cost the fishing industry ten times the value of the seal hunt. As a positive way of moving forward, the HSUS supports a fair sealing license retirement program, which would compensate the fishermen involved should the hunt be ended.

The fact is, while the hunt has not changed, society clearly has. Today, clubbing and shooting defenseless seal pups for their skins is no longer acceptable to the overwhelming majority of Canadians. The simple truth is, the seal hunt is outdated, cruel and un-Canadian. And it is time we ended it for good.

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