SEAL CAMPAIGN 2003
Seal Campaign Update 3/5/2003

Report from The Gulf of St. Lawrence
March 5th, 2003

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's 2003 seal campaign begins today.

Our helicopter with pilot Jean Yves La Casse, arrived during the late afternoon of March 4th from Sept Ilse, Quebec.

Crewmembers that have arrived are Iggy Aronovich from Brazil, Brooke MacDonald from Vancouver, and Ian Robicheau from Los Angeles. Expected later today are Dean and Susan Walton of St. Lucia, Captain Jet Johnson of Vancouver, and Allison-Lance Watson from Malibu. Other crew will be arriving over the next week.

Our objective for 2003 is to increase international public awareness of the increased kill quotas for the annual Canadian harp seal slaughter.

In addition to the Sea Shepherd helicopter and crew, there are three helicopters and a spotter plane from the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Also on the ice this year is Timothy Treadwell, a member of the Sea Shepherd Advisory Board and famed for his incredible films of Grizzley bears. Timothy will be filming the seals and the seal hunt for a special presentation he is producing.

TAKE ACTION AGAINST THE CANADIAN SEAL HUNT:

Letters to the Editors of Newspapers go further than letters to politicians

In writing your letter, keep in mind the following facts:

The quota of seals to be killed this year in 2003 is 350,000 This quota is set each year for three years The total number of seals to be killed over the next three years is over one million This quota does not reflect the number of seals killed and lost and not included in the quota The seals are also threatened by global warming and ice fields have been severely diminished over the last ten years. The seal hunt is heavily subsidized by the Canadian Government. The killing of the seals is primarily a way of deflecting criticism away from the Canadian government for the destruction of the cod fishery due to the incompetence of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

If you do not have time to write a letter, simply write STOP THE SEAL HUNT and e-mail it to the newspaper.

The best papers to concentrate on are:

The St. John's Evening Telegram The Halifax Chronicle Herald The Globe and Mail The Vancouver Sun

Click Here to Write to a Canadian Newspaper

The Op-Ed piece written by Captain Paul Watson below will also give additional facts to help you write a letter.

Seal Wars

by Captain Paul Watson

On February 3rd, 2003, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced a kill quota of 350,000 harp seals each year for the next three years.

Last year the quota was 275,000. The sealers slaughtered over 310,000 seals. There were no legal consequences for the quota overkill. Instead, the Canadian government has rewarded the kill quota violations with an incredible increase of 75,000 seals.

There is also no scientific justification for the quota. The seal counting techniques amount to little more than guesswork The number of harp seals range from a low of 2.5 million to a high of 6 million depending on which side of the issue the report originates with. The quota appears to be set each year by the number of seals taken the year before, in other words, an estimate of how many it is possible to kill.

The primary demand for the seal pelts is in Denmark and Eastern Europe, and this market has become glutted due to excessive kills over the last few years, so much so that pelt prices are falling, and this means more government subsidies to prop up the sealers. Canada is also spending tax dollars to lobby the United States to revoke the Marine Mammal Protection Act to open markets there.

This lust to kill the seals is reflected in the following statement made by former Newfoundland Fisheries Minister John Efford to the Newfoundland Legislature:

"Mr. Speaker, I would like to see the six million, or whatever number is out there, killed or 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. What they (the fishermen) 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."

There are facts about this slaughter that are indisputable:

• The Canadian Harp seal hunt is the largest single mass slaughter of a mammalian wildlife species anywhere in the world.
• It is grossly inhumane. Credible witnesses, including myself, have seen seals skinned alive and tortured. These incidents have been documented and sealers themselves have bragged and written about how much fun it is to torture a seal.
• is an incredibly wasteful hunt. Canadian author and naturalist, Farley Mowat, estimates that for every seal landed, another is shot and lost under the ice, not to be included in the quota.

Canada retaliates by saying that the hunt is well-managed and humane. The problem with this statement is that it is difficult to verify by independent witnesses because it is a crime in Canada to approach within a half a nautical mile of a seal hunt to photograph, film, or even witness a kill without permission of the Canadian government. We are expected to take the word of the sealers and the government that the hunt is humane although most independent observers, who have risked and suffered arrest, attest otherwise.

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans insists that the seals must die so that cod populations can increase and their position is that the harp seal is a major predator of the cod. Yet, there is little scientific justification for this position.

On the contrary, studies and analysis of stomach contents of harp seals indicate that cod is a very small part of a harp seals diet. The largest predators of young cod are in fact, other fish species, the same species that serve as the primary prey of the harp seals. In other words, the reduction of harp seal populations is resulting in the increase of fish that prey on cod, and this of course translates into less cod.

This is the same Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans responsible for the mismanagement of the cod fishery in the first place. In fact, the only thing DFO can be relied upon to do - is to make a bureaucratic mess and economic disaster of every fishery it has attempted to manage. Why should we expect them to manage the seals any better?

When the first European explorers landed on the East coast of Canada there was no shortage of cod, and there were an estimated 30 million seals.

Now, with cod populations at less than 1% of pre-Columbian levels, the seal has become the scapegoat for the excesses of the Canadian and foreign drag trawler fleets that plundered the Grand Banks for decades, and left very little behind.

Over one million harp seals are condemned to be cruelly slaughtered over the next three years.

As a Canadian, I am ashamed. As a conservationist, I am appalled. As a human being, I am angered by Canada's butchery.

This bureaucratic ordered destruction of the seals has no place in the 21st Century.

We need to keep reminding Mr. Efford that people are opposed to the slaughter of seals.

E-mail him and e-mail him often to protest his contemptible attitude towards the harp seals. I have had quite a few debates with Mr. Efford over the years, we are not going to change his attitude but we certainly can let him know we ardently oppose the slaughter of seals!

John Efford's Phone Number is 613-992-4133. His Fax Number is 613-992-7277. John Efford's E-Mail Address is: Efford.J@parl.gc.ca