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page 2- ' February 23, 1977 - North Shore News
HUTUAALRONUUECEND mn

“Can he who has only discovered the value of

whale-bone and whale-oil be said to have
discovered the true uses of the whale? Can he who

slays the elephant for his ivery be said to have

seen the elephant? No, these are petty and
accidental uses. Just as if a stronger race were to

kill us in order to make buttons and flageolets of
our bones, and then prate of the usefulness of

man. Every creature is better alive than’: dead,

both men and moose and pine-trees, as life i is more

beautiful than. death.”’

So said the famous ‘American naturalist Henry
David Thoreau, in 1853. He was _a friend of the
environment before the world knew much about

itself, and his words have come to ring more and
more loudly over the last hundred and twenty-four.

years.

.

Yet man _=- persists in
slaughtering entire species
of animals. Next month the

Norwegian sealing boats will

grind through the ice near
Newfoundland and the an-
nual slaughter of harp seal
pups will begin. The Can-
adian government, blind to
the warning of its own
scientific advisers, sanctions
the killings and harasses the -
anti-sealing factions such as.
Greenpeace.

Last year approximately
200 thousand seal pups were
born. The quota for the
slaughter was set at 127,000.
Overkill by the Canadian
landsmen was 41,000, so a
total of 168,000 seal pups
met their deaths. © That
represents a mortality of 84
percent — sure extinction for
the seal in four-or five years.

CYNICAL EXERCISE

This year the Canadian |

government, in one of the
most cynical exercises in
bureaucratic pragmatism,
raised the quota to 170,000
pups. If the birth rate is the,
same as it was last year — a
doubtful hypothesis in view
of the decimation of the seal
herds — 85 percent of this

VERIFIED CIRCULATION 46,000
1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4

OFFICE/NEWS: (604) 980-0511
CLASSIFIED: 980-3464 CIRCULATION: 986-1337

year’s new born pups will be

slaughtered. For the Japan-

ese fashion-fur market.

A further exercise in
cynicism — the ‘Seal Protec-.
tion Act’ — was passed

during the outcry last.spring,

when Greenpeace came to

_Newfoundland with a plan to.
spray harmiess green dye on.

the peits and render them
worthless.

The Act does nothing to -

protect the seals —. it
prohibits them from being
sprayed with a dye, prohibits
helicopter landings within 2
mile of a seal, and prohibits
interference with a_ seal
being killed. These are
hardly protectionist laws, as
they are there purely and
simply to hamper environ-
mental groups who are trying
to stop the slaughter. ©

95% KILLED

During this century we
have killed 95 per cent of the
seals. They are defenceless.
Once the patch is located —
by helicopter — the sealers
swarm over the ice. The baby
seals have not a ghost of a
chance. They are clubbed
over the head, and then
skinned while still twitching.
None is spared.

Pablisher Peter Speck

Associate Publisher Bob Graham/Managing Editor
Noel Wright/News Guillermo Lam/Phoios Ells-
worth Dickson/Production Marna Leiren/Advertis-
ing Kristi Vidler/Classifled Berni Hilliard/Circula-

tion Yvonne Chapman/Admiaistration Barbara

1 Haywood/Accounts Sylvia Sorensen.

North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an

independent

community newspaper
qualified under Schedule 111,

and
Part 111,

Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is

published cach Wednesday

by the North

Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every
door on the North Shore.

Second Class Mall Registration Number 3885.
(:, ENTIRE CONTENTS COPYRIGHT © 1977 NORTH

, °: SHORE-EREE, PRESS.LED. AIL rights, te

tate ONDE tien ti

CSEFVE I sry sie

1.

1

‘status symbol. All skins are
used to satisfy the fashion

the Environment (lots of luck

ized man.

There were 20,000,000.
seals in.1900. There are less.
than 1,000,000 now. The
firms slaughtering the seals.
are Norwegian firms, and
they employ Newfoundland
fishermen who are augment-
ing their incomes. The
average income for a Newfie
from sealing is $300 to $400
per yoar. They are iransport-
ed to the ‘‘patch’’, provided
with a club and a sharp knife,

and when they have com-
pleted their slaughter they
are paid off and sent home.

“STATUS SYMBOL”

Of the $12 million realized
by the slaughterers, about $2
million stays in Canada as
wages and. services. The
biggest market for the white
fur is Japan, where the white
sealskin coats are a very big

market .

You can help. Donations
can be sent to the Green-
peace Sealing Fund, 2007
West 4th, Vancouver. You
can write the Department of

there!). Or you can make
your feelings known to your
member of parliament, Ron
Huntington. Although he is
an opposition member he is a °
very determined and organ-

But he can’t do everything .
alone.

Prosecutor W.H. Deverell
told the News after the trial
that both rape cases were
heard at the same time
because the court had ruled
that evidence of the second
rape allegation was admis-
sible to prove the identity of
the suspect in the first case.

‘IT WASN’T ME”

Before they started delib-
erating Defence lawyer E.J.
Horembala pursuaded jury
members to dismiss the
evidence of the teenage girls.
In the first case, the lawyer
said, Palmer denied ever
having seen the girl. ‘‘if she
was raped, it wasn’t me,”’
Palmer was quoted as telling
the court when he took the
witness stand in his defence.

In the second case Palm-
er’s lawyer said his client
admitted some sexual inti-
macies occurred between
him and the second girl, but
it was she who instigated it
the court was told.

The prosecutor, however,
reminded the jury that there
was a pattern involved in
either of the cases. The
Crown had alleged that
Palmer used his black van to
pick up the = girls who

happened to be waiting at
bus stops.

In each case the girls were
asked to perform orgl scx,

,were,choked, struck an the
rape Deve stent siuid:” fh

a

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