Seals, Lies and Videotape

We note with dismay and disgust that the animal rights crowd is once again planning to cash in on the vitally important Canadian harp seal hunt. Their campaigns in the late 1970s and early 1980s were aimed at the general public, especially in Europe, where hunt protest guru Brian Davies encouraged the citizens he had outraged to flood their legislators' offices with demands that pelts of the animals be banned from entering the European community. This worked for him, and the pelts of animals less than a year old were banned. His attempts to orchestrate a boycott of Canadian fish in the UK, US and Europe, however, failed.

This time around, IFAW, HSUS, and other lesser groups are using the Internet to encourage the American public to boycott all fish products that might have originated in Canada, and to claim that Americans will not travel to Canada on vacations, because Canadian fishermen kill "baby" harp seals. Although the hunt for white coated harp pups has been stopped, and hunters now take only older animals, all campaigns are using the image of white coat harp seals in order to rekindle old hatreds.

Web sites of these renewed protests contain links to government officials' emails, so the general public, fired up again by anti-hunt rhetoric and images, will be likely to protest directly to their own elected officials. Canadian citizens are especially encouraged to demand that their own government "put an end" to the hunt for harp seals.

Because IFAW was so skillful the first time around, the hunt nearly did come to an end. For a number of years, seals were not taken in numbers adequate to keep the herd from growing. The animals increased from 1.8 million in 1983, to over 5 million in 2004. By the late '90s, new markets were found outside the EU. The pelts and seal oil capsules began to be in demand in Norway, Denmark, and China. Gradually, prices rose and the number of seals harvested increased yearly, but it was not enough to get them back in balance with the marine ecosystem. Seals will eat anything small enough to fit down their throats. This means that those species that are also prey of the cod are targeted by seals, as well. Canadian fishermen know that they have to control seals in order that the fish they also depend upon shall continue to exist and proliferate. Capelin, mackerel, herring, turbot, shrimp and krill all occupy necessary niches in the environment. The downfall of the cod was once thought impossible. When it happened due to over fishing, marine environment disturbance due to oil exploration, and inadequate data collection for management, this was Canada's wake-up call. It may not be reasonable to "blame" the seals for the collapse of the cod. It is reasonable, however, to support Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans as its biologists and policy experts work together to make sure the seals are brought back under control.

The protesters are right about one thing: The planned harvest of nearly a million seals over a three year period ending this coming year, is not sustainable. That is the entire point of such a large harvest. It is intended to dramatically cut down the size of the herd so that it shall once again be more in balance with the fish available to seals, sea birds, whales, and fishermen. A misinformed general public contributed to a loss of the market for harp seal products twenty years ago, resulting in an ecological disaster for the western Atlantic and all the people who live on its shores.

IWMC urges all who care about the precedent that has been set, and about the future of scientific wildlife management, to write to their own legislators, to the press, and to the Canadian government, in support of the renewed, professionally managed seal fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the coast of Newfoundland. The very idea of a renewed attempt at a fish boycott to "stop the hunt" is a crass example of a culturally biased power play that shouldn't be allowed to get off the ground anywhere. The bottom line of this animal rights campaign is not seals. It is all about the power of unscrupulous people to manipulate innocent voters, who then cause public officials to choose between science based wildlife management and losing the next election. The world does not benefit from this kind of behavior, and neither do seals, fish, or people.

IWMC urges all who care about the precedent that has been set, and about the future of scientific wildlife management, to write to their own legislators, to the press, and to the Canadian government, in support of the renewed, professionally managed seal fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the coast of Newfoundland.