The goal of Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans for this year's harp seal fishery was to realize a harvest of 350,000 animals. Gulf of St. Lawrence fishermen did their part by killing some 90,000 of the animals by the end of March, and Newfoundland fishermen in their longliners have nearly completed the job, taking over 200,000 animals in two days. Reports of approximately 500 boats off the front are apparently the reason why the two-day span was enough to complete their share of the take. Now, the rest of the quota may be taken by fishermen in small "speedboats", outboards that race out to the ice from shore, take what they can bring back, and then, riding low, fight the swells and the winds to get safely back to port. Longliner fishermen are now trucking their pelts, meat and fat to market, and anticipating debt relief from their long and income-less winter.

The seal herd is now estimated at over 5.2 million animals. This huge and unnatural state of affairs was caused by the interruption in harvest orchestrated by the IFAW. In 1982 IFAW launched a petition drive in the EU, and the parliament passed a law banning the import of the products of seals under the age of one year. Since that time, the herd was not significantly affected by hunting until the last few years. Now markets in Eastern Europe, China and some other areas, have increased due to a desire for both pelts and for the oil, which is high in Omega 3s and which is now a very popular food supplement.

This increased market demand has fortunately coincided with a huge supply of seals and with the desire of Canada's East Coast fishermen to gather them up for a long awaited supplement to their fish-dependent income. The government boats and planes were busy off the front, so that law enforcement and coast guard could keep an eye on sealers, monitoring the hunt and hoping there would be no need for rescues, as the seas were extremely rough, with high winds and in some areas, heavy fog.

The boys are now safely back home. The hunt critics are still carrying on about barbarism, and concerns that the quota is unsustainable. Of course it is. That is the whole point. Protest in the '80s destroyed the market, and seals grew out of balance with their world. That is being corrected now. Another year or two, and the herd may be cut down to a size appropriate to the ecosystem in today's Atlantic. Then the quotas will drop to the more moderate harvest levels that sustained the herd at a slowly growing biomass twenty years ago. Good job, Canada. Congratulations, and here's to many more! At long last, a government and its citizens are correcting a great wrong.