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AGAINST THE CURRENT
Gentle Shepherds
of the Sea Ice
By Captain Paul Watson
For more than two
centuries, the nursery floes of the beautiful Harp seal pups
have witnessed an annual ritual of cruelty and blood. Every March
and April, the off-shore ice has run scarlet as the plaintive
wails of terrorized seal pups broke the frozen silence.
They are clubbed to death without
mercy; many skinned alive. Protesting mother seals, called "belligerents,"
are brutally kicked in the face or shot. The seal hunt is, without
a doubt, one of the most damning indictments of human savagery
against other creatures.
From 1975 to 1983, I fought this
annual barbaric rite, leading five major expeditions against
the Canadian seal hunt, two for Greenpeace, one for the Fund
for Animals, and the last two in 1981 and 1983 for the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society.
During those eight years, we
blockaded sealing ships in the ice with our own bodies and "painted"
seals with organic red and blue dye to destroy the economic value
of their pelts without harming the seals. We brought movie stars
like Brigitte Bardot to the ice, along with scientists, writers
and politicians. In 1983, we blockaded a sealing fleet in harbor
and escorted the second fleet back to port from the ice.
It was a costly pursuit. My crew
and I were arrested repeatedly. We won victories in court each
time but at great expense. I was beaten numerous times by sealers
and policemen and my ship was rammed by the Canadian Coast Guard,
seized and held for two years by the Canadian government.
Finally, in 1983, all of the
publicity generated coupled with the political action in Europe
to ban the import of seal pup furs, resulted in the collapse
of the commercial seal hunt. It was a major victory but it only
lasted twelve years.
Last year, the Canadian Minister
of Fisheries and Oceans, Brian Tobin, announced that Canada would
set a quota of 250,000 seals for 1996 and would pay subsidies
to encourage a renewed slaughter. The Norwegians and the Russians
have "allotted" themselves additional quotas, with
the result that 1996 may see more seals slaughtered in the North
Atlantic than any year of this century.
This new seal hunt does not even
have the credibility of necessity. The seal carcasses will be
left on the ice, including the once-valuable fur pelts that no
longer have a market. The Norwegians already have a million seal
pelts kept in warehouses at government subsidized expense. The
only marketable product is the male genitalia, which sells in
China and Taiwan as a quack remedy for human male impotence.
The demand for these penises is great, with the powdered organs
going for up to $200 each to mix with dried tiger bones to make
a "snake-oil potion" to appease jaded sexual appetites.
Mr. Tobin was recently taken
aback when I referred to him as the "Lorena Bobbit to the
world." Unfortunately, his desire to win the votes of East
Coast fishermen is a powerful stimulus.
Despite the evidence and the
advice of his own biologists, the Minister has now blamed the
collapse of the Northern Cod species on the Harp seal. This was
not always the case. In the July 8, 1994 edition of the Ottawa
Citizen, Tobin was quoted saying, "...we (Canada) will not
consider a return to seal culling on the east coast, despite
fishermen's claims that the seals threaten Newfoundland's endangered
Cod. Evidence of the impact of the seals is not clear. There
is no doubt in my mind that man has been a far greater predator."
But that was 1994. It is now 1996 and the unemployment compensation
program to the fishermen is getting too costly to taxpayers and
Tobin needs to have a distraction from the many failed fisheries
fiascoes so he can achieve a higher office. A slaughter of Harp
seals will appease the fishermen at least until after the next
general election.
To blame the Harp seal for the
near-extinction of the Cod is to take the blame away from the
real culprits -- bungled government management and the greed
of the huge industrial dragger fleets.
In fact, according to Dr. David
Lavigne, the world's leading Harp seal scientist, a massive slaughter
of Harp seals may have serious negative repercussions for the
cod.
"Seals typically consume
a range of species, including some predators and competitors
of commercially valued species." said Lavigne from his office
at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. "It is possible,
therefore, that seals could assist in the recovery of some commercially
valued stocks; i.e. reducing a seal population could actually
be detrimental to fishing interests."
This is much too complicated
an observation for a Fisheries Department that views the seal
equation, according to Mr. Tobin as "seals eat fish; less
seals, more fish -- a logical solution."
Brian Tobin leads a fisheries
ministry that has seen the collapse of Canada's fishing industry
on the east coast and the near-collapse on the west coast. He
has reduced complicated, naturally-evolved interdependent processes
to simplistic, ignorant conclusions sure to have tragic consequences.
Canada and other countries such as Norway, however, do not seek
to find answers to ecological problems -- the priority is short-term
economic and political gain.
Which means that once again we
will be going to the ramparts to defend the seals against human
barbarism and greed -- with a new twist.
We cannot simply be reactive,
and towards this end the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has
been working for the last three years to develop an alternative
to the traditional seal kill. We believe we have found a solution
-- a cruelty free, non-lethal method of utilizing baby seals.
Without killing or hurting a single seal pup we can provide hundreds
of jobs and we can create an atmosphere where local peoples can
live harmoniously with another species in mutual cooperation.
I took the first alternative
sealing expedition to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1994. The idea
was to explore the possibility of collecting molting seal hairs
from recently weaned seal pups. I had noticed years before that
the Harp seal pup hair follicle is transparent in color and hollow
in structure, very similar to polar bear fur.
The seals have this unique fur
for only three weeks until they put on enough weight in blubber
to keep their little bodies warm. These transparent hairs absorb
the heat from the sun making for a very warm solar blanket. Observing
this, I felt that if these molted hairs could be collected there
could be a utilitarian use, and if so, an economic alternative
to the hunt could be created.
Our first objective was to see
if collecting the hairs would be harmful to the seal. Dr. Lavigne
felt there would not be any harmful effects. We experienced no
problem from the mothers -- the pups were newly weaned. When
the seal pups are weaned, they "starve-down" for approximately
2 weeks, losing some of their "baby-fat," molting their
fur and preparing internally for their long migration.
We discovered also that most
of the pups did not appear concerned at our approach, and when
we applied a wire hair dog's brush the pups closed their eyes
and many took on a contented expression. If there was any objection
by the seal, we respectfully turned away and went to the next
one.
We found that the fluffy hairs
were loosely anchored by the thickness of the newly emerging
sleek pelt. We were able to abandon the hair brush and simply
pluck the loose hairs from the seals by the handful. Each seal
yielded approx. 60 grams of soft, fluffy down.
That same year, we hired two
Magdalen Island sealers, Karl McKay and Roy McClean to brush
seals. Mr. McKay liked the idea and brushed seals with enthusisum.
Mr. McClean, on the other hand, grumbled that brushing seals
was not his idea of manly work. Nonetheless, we obtained sufficient
samples to work with.
A Swiss TV crew accompanied us
to the ice that year and the program attracted the attention
of a German manufacturer of bed comforters. The Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society was contacted by Tobias Kirchhoff, the owner
of Kirchhoff bedding fabrics in Germany.
Herr Kirchhoff was excited by
the possibility of using the fibres in the manufacture of bed
comforters. We sent samples and he responded with great enthusiasm
for the potential of this "fleece from the sea."
"It is an excellent fibre,
ideal for comforters." Kirchhoff said. "What's more,
it is a cruelty-free product which will be especially attractive
to consumers in Germany."
I was elated and prepared a second
expedition in 1995, this time accompanied by Mr. Kirchhoff, European
media, and actor Martin Sheen to help in publicizing what promised
to be "a gentle, non-lethal form of sealing".
Unfortunately, we were not welcomed
by the sealing community. A meeting was called by the Sealer's
Association in the Magdalen Islands. It was decided to force
my crew and I off the island.
With shouts of "seals are
meant for clubbing, not for coddling" and "real men
don't brush seals," a gang of more than 300 angry, drunken
sealers descended on our hotel, smashing down doors, breaking
windows and demanding to know which room I was in.
Two police officers arrived and
came to my room. We could hear the mob storming through the halls,
kicking doors and screaming threats. Finally they found my door
and started kicking.
I asked the two officers what
they intended to do if the door was broken down. They shrugged,
and said "we can do nothing."
The mob found an ax and began
to whack at the door handle. The door shattered and burst off
it's hinges, spilling a human debris flow of intoxicated sealers
into the room. The police stood aside and I found myself facing
some forty thugs in a semi-circle around me with hundreds in
the hall behind them.
My hand clutched a stun gun behind
my back. A sealer jumped out and punched me in the side of the
head and I dropped him with the stun gun, then a second and a
third. The sealers were bewildered. They ran forward and punched,
kicked, or spit in my face and then darted back.
Finally, other police arrived
and dragged me from the room and through a gauntlet of screaming,
kicking sealers, bruising my kidneys, cutting my face, and cracking
my ribs until I was tossed into a police car and driven to the
airport, where I was forced onto a small plane and flown three
hundred miles away to Moncton, New Brunswick. I was kicked out
of the plane without a coat, money, or I.D. and told by the police
that I was lucky to have escaped with my life.
Meanwhile, the reporters with
me were attacked. Stephen Douglass, the photographer for the
London Daily Mirror, was punched and had his cameras smashed.
A German television crew was forced by the police to turn over
their footage of the riot to the sealers, but they hid their
film in a snowbank and turned over blank tapes to the mob.
Finally, a phone call placed
earlier by Martin Sheen to the White House led to a U.S. demand
to Quebec to send a tactical team to evacuate my crew to safety.
Despite the attack being filmed
and witnessed by the local police, the government refused to
lay charges. Brian Tobin told me that I should have expected
this reception for interfering with the livelihood of Canadian
sealers in the past. This happened despite the fact that I was
operating under a government research permit on a project to
provide alternative jobs to sealers who live in a region that
is economically-devastated.
Despite this, our objective has
not been thwarted. In March 1996, I will be returning with a
crew to operate out of Prince Edward Island to obtain enough
seal hair to manufacture some prototype comforters.
Despite the lack of government
financial and moral support, despite the anger of the sealers
who consider our approach to be insulting to their manhood, despite
the obstacles, we intend to persevere until we create this alternative
industry.
We owe it to the seals to carry
on. We are not just protesting the seal hunt; we are offering
a real alternative.
In this most educated and enlightened
of times, it is ironic that today, species are disappearing faster
now than ever before. More species will have gone extinct from
the years 1980 to 2000 than in the past 65 million years. In
the time it has taken you to read this column, as many as 2 species
have ceased to exist. It's a choice. It's a choice between the
greed of slaughtering seals for body parts and having whole communities
socially devastated by the moral outrage and public outcry against
them or to live harmoniously with the seals and make money peacefully
from their existence. It's a choice between an economic solution
that produces an appealing functional product such as a bed comforter,
or a quack potion condemned by properly-licensed medical doctors
to "cure" Chinese impotence. It's a choice between
a bloody, cruel, remorseless slaughter and a non-lethal, cruelty-free
alternative. And finally, it's about accountability and the choice
between humanity choosing an ecologically positive life-style
or continuing our centuries-old policy of rape, slaughter, plunder
and disrespect for the natural world.
The Harp seal pup is the most
exquisitely lovely creature on this earth. If we can't protect
it, how will we be able to protect the less lovely, equally essential
creatures like the cod?
This is the first in a series
of regular columns by Captain Paul Watson, who will be writing
on issues pertaining to the protection of marine wildlife from
overexploitation.
This article appeared in the
Winter 1996 issue of Ocean Realm magazine and appears
here by permission.
P.O. Box 2616, Friday Harbor,
WA 98250 (USA) Tel: 360-370-5650 Fax: 360-370-5651
Copyright © 2004 Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society. All rights reserved.
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