Here we go again. The seal hunter gets onto the ice floe to take some seals for the pelt, for the meat or just to reduce the number of seals. As usual, the world media is covering the event. Old time celebrities are converging on the floes to have their picture taken together with a white-coat. The animals right activists or NGOs, that is HSUS, PETA, Green Peace and more, are busy spreading their propaganda that it is wrong to kill the innocent seals and that the Canadians are using an inhumane method of killing.
It is now about four decades ago that the French lady headed the first "Save the Seal" campaign. It proved to have a devastating effect on the Canadian seal hunt. The public opinion in Europe caught on to the message from the activist. I understand that the French lady will visit the ice floes again this year. I hope that she has a good seal skin coat. It is cool out there.
The Canadian fur industry collapsed. Worse, in Canada, the general public was also convinced by the propaganda and our spineless politicians closed down the seal hunting for years.
So, the seals were left to themselves. The population increased from the normal 1.5 mill to something 4 to 8 mill, and during the same time the commercial fishery on the east coast collapsed. Now, this should from a common sense point of view have been expected. However, it is still stated by the activists that there is no "scientific" proof for that seals eat fish. Quite fantastic, but the media is agreeing with these NGOs and the perception in the general public is maintained at status quo. I have never seen any "scientific" proof for that a cow eats grass. Well, I do not need any proof, but somebody may.
The Canadian government has over the last few years opened the seal hunt again and permitted a yearly quota of a few hundred thousand seals. This may slow the increase of the seal population, but in order to reduce the population to a sustainable level, the yearly harvest should be more than one mill. The fact is that we now have a seal infestation in the north west Atlantic. It is like a rat infestation. The cod fishery is in general destroyed on the North American east coast and on the west coast of Greenland.
Who are to blame for the situation? First it is the NGOs. Second, it is the national governments of Canada, the US and the European countries. These governments did not counteract the propaganda being spread by the NGOs. The spineless politician who has been elected for 4 years only wants to be reelected. Therefore, he is not going to try to convince the voters that they have been mislead by the NGOs. The NGOs are not at all concerned about the worlds wild resources. The NGOs have developed into an industry which completely relays on money being contributed by individuals of the misinformed public and their supply industries. It would be a disaster for these NGOs if the general public should start to realized that it has been grossly misinformed. Third, it is the media. Without the media, the NGOs would not have been able to spread their propaganda. The media has been a very willing tool for the activists and still is.
I believe that the Canadian government knows that the out of control seal population is a serious problem and that the numbers have to be reduced and soon. To do nothing, will only further destroy the fishery and then, if it is not already happening, the seals will start to starve to death. If this is the course of action chosen, it may take decades possibly a century before the old balance between the seals and the fish are reached.
During the last few weeks, we have seen and heard many comments in the papers and in the media. None of them have been any different from what we have heard and seen before. The message of the NGOs are still strong. The new Canadian Fisheries Minister wrote in the paper that Canada has the right to harvest the seals. Very good, but nothing about why we want or have to harvest the seals. Just a politically correct announcement.
The latest we have heard is that PETA has sent a letter to the Canadian government requesting that we stop the inhumane killing of the innocent seals. Yes, in Canada as in the US, they kill innocent chickens, cows, rats and mice and so on. In Canada, we also kill seals. Of course, the seals are innocent. Those not so innocent and responsible for the situation today are mentioned above. PETA of course included.
Funny enough, not the Canadian government answered the letter from PETA, but a Canadian senator did. However, the senator seems not to have more brain than a seal pub. She stated that killing innocent seals were no worse that the US killing innocent people in Iraq. If she wants to relate the seal hunt to the problems in Afghanistan/Iraq, she should tell the celebrities that instead of prostituting themselves for the NGOs, they should become suicide bombers. Then they would cause much less damage to our wild resources.
For sure, here in Canada we have a seal problem. However, this is only a part of the overall problem in the world oceans. The commercial whale hunting which was banned several decades ago, has caused the population of several whale species to get out of control. This is another problem that interested readers can explore on the website of the IWMC World Conservation Trust, www.iwmc.org .
