2 Se Aan

_ fur companies,

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page 2- December 7, 1977 - - North Shore News

The seal hunt, to be blunt, is not a hunt at all. It

is a mass slaughter of seal pups, all about eight

. weeks old. Their white fur pelts end up worn by. Dean Fisher, of U.B.C.’s.
women in “Ji apati ‘and Scandinavia who are

Probably w well Past | the e age of child-bearing.

' The ‘seals ‘are gregarious.
They congregate'in herds in
places that they! ‘have found
over the ages to be ‘safe,’
such as the ice “floes off
Newfoundland, __ Where _ the
feed from.. ‘the fich polar
ocean currents is: plentiful.
There, in. the ‘hostile . but.

beautiful environment of ice.

and blizzards, the

mother seals give birth to
theiz pups. Through the
infinite wisdom of the uni-
verse, the pups are almost all
born: within a few days of
each other. Their coats are
white when they are very
young, to provide . camou-

'. flage. They cannot swim and

are helpless -against any .
predator. .At about three-
months they lose this soft.
white coat and begin to
assume the adult coloura-
tion, and it is for this reason -
that they are slaughtered
while. they are about..eight
weeks old...” -

CANADIAN CLUBS :
The sealers, Scandinavian _

close contact with the federal”
department of fisheries, both ©

‘on the - floes:and ‘in’ the .

corridors in Ottawa. When
the icebreakers smash |
through to the herds there.
are fisheries officers drinking

- coffee on the bridges, and

‘maintain & f

‘way to make a living. They
work a few days at most, and —
are then paid off and sent _
home. The majority of the
profit from the slaughter :
goes to the Scandinavian
interésts that arrange it.

The : Canadian ‘govern-
ment’s position is that the -

seal resource is almost.

oe Ne Nese ee

inexhaustible, and federal

policy makers still assid-
uously promote this dogma ©
in the face of strong evidence
that the seal: species is
threatened. The size of the
harp: seal herds has ..been ~
declining for some time. Last
year the government of
Canada bowed to pressure
‘and set up a Committee on
Seals and Sealing. Then,,
with the arrogance that is.
dismayingly familiar, they
ignored the committee’s.
‘recommendations. . The.
committee recommended a.
quota of 150,000 pups—the
sealers. objected — and
170,000 were slaughtered. It
has been. rumored that the
butchering. was. done with |
_ such zeal that an-embarassed
,, government, . faced with the

fact “Of an, overkill, set the

“quota: after being informed'¢ f
the size of the kill.

" coureimsd’parvsGui

‘To accurately determine
:the size of the seal popula-

PM

ferent. methods which have
not bee
up with higher figures. Dr.

zoology department, a mem-.
ber. of . the Committee,
interviewed by the Van-
‘couver Sum’s Moira Farrow,
explained why the committee.

‘did not ‘make any recom- .

mendations about the size of
the quota for the spring of
1978. Faced with masses of
statistics presented by gov-
ernment biologists and fish-
-eries people, the committee
was snewed under by: the
information provided. ‘‘None
of us felt mathematically

- aualified ta argue with the

S heeceeteen

‘government’s
said Fisher.

scientists,”
‘Their biolo-

gists, say that, during - the

photographic survey, whole:
batches of pups are missed
. out.”* Asked what he thought
of the increase in the quota
from
180,000 in 1978, Fisher said:
‘Personally, I would have
hoped that they had held the
line on last year’s quota,” ,

But nobody knows for sure

how many seals there are.

“Faced with information ob-—
‘tained by the Committee and.
conflicting’ information pro-
vided by the fisheries dep-.
artment, I think I would _
believe the committee. Not -
“so the government, however, ©
who ignored the body they -
set ‘up and - accepted ‘the
advice °:of =the» fisheries -
department,’ who ‘are: ‘pretty
clearly in bed. with — the.
sealing industry. No one but
God knows how many ‘seals
there are. And even if there
‘is a quarter of a million seals
this year, no one knows how.

other fisheries officers fly tion is very difficult. The many times the mother seals
overhead in helicopters, as pups are almost invisible and will go through the agony of |
do the sealers, locating the’ only ‘the adults can be seen giving birth, suckling their

‘patches.’

The companies that own
the boats may be Scandina-
vian, but the hands that-hold ©
the clubs are Canadian. Men
from Newfoundland and
Labrador are hired ‘to do the |
killing. They receive about a
dollar for each pelt they take.
It is. a way for most to
; supplement their unemploy-
ment insurance benefits, and
is by no means regarded asa

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Publisher Peter Speck

Ausoclate Publisher Bob Grahamy/Edltor-in-Chief
.Noel Wright/News Guillermo Lam/Photos Ells-
“worth Dickson/Preduction Marna Leiren/Advertis-
ing Kristi Vidler/Claseified Berni Hilliard/Circala-

ion Yvonné Chapman/Administration Barbara
_ Haywood/Accoanis Sylvia Sorensen.

North Shore Nows, founded in i969 as an
independent community newspaper
qu ualified under Schedule 111, Part 111,

aragraph (111 of the Excise Tax Act, is

_ published each Wednesday by .the North.

Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every:

oe door. on the-North Shore. -

Second Class Mall Registration Number 3885.

NTENTS COPYRIGHT © 1977 NORTH,
_SHORE FREE PRESS LTD. All rights reserved.

until one gets quite close.
. The committee set up by the
government employed scien-
tists from Guelph University,
who used’a method involving
aerial photography and infra-
red film, which detected the |
body heat of the mammals..
The survey estimate that

there were about 250,000
pups. last spring, before the
slaughter. : ~

Biologists employed by the —
fisheries service, using dif-

and

‘pups for a few. weeks and
then watching them die.

| \ with
inflated quotas, the govern-
ment is pressing on to harass.
those opposed | to the hunt.
Last year ethey” ‘passed ah
-insincerely:: ‘named measure
called the::‘Seal Protection
Act.” A seéction® of the act.
prohibits aircraft from flying
less than 2,000 feet over a.
seal, or from landing within a
half-mile ofaherd. This jaw |
does. not apply to seal killers”
or fisheries officials, and is
simply designed to make it
very difficult for. journalists —
and. conservationists to: visit
the hunt.” They must land —

their. helicopters a half-mile |

away and make their way”
back on foot-—a difficult and
dangerous passage on ice
floes. .

“Last year people from’ all
across Canada,
from Vancouver, raised a lot
of money and sent Green-
peace to Newfoundland. The
small group of Greenpeace
volunteers found it almost
‘impossible to get a commer-
cial helicopter company to
‘take them to the floes from.
their base camp. One owner
levelled with them. ‘It’s not
‘the. danger,"’ he ‘said, ‘‘it’s
the. economic - ‘realities. I
personally approve “of what
-you’re trying to do. But how
“in hell am I going to make a
‘. living after you're gone. The
_ people around here would tar
and feather me.” |

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 }

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