Instead of tilting at windmills, this time Paul Watson has tilted at the immense World Wide Fund for Nature. His effort is no less ridiculous, as he hasn't a chance of affecting either WWF policy or its huge and charitable donor base. Watson claims that WWF is wrong to be backing the commercial seal hunt (for all practical purposes, a cull) while on the other hand, purporting to be an animal welfare advocate. This tiff between a tiny, inconsequential organization and the huge WWF was discussed in the Toronto Star, April 20^th, by Barry Kent MacKay, himself a vitriolic seal hunt protester. MacKay has always been opposed to the commercial seal hunt, and apparently hasn't the wit to realize or perhaps doesn't care, that the herd is now hugely disproportionate in its ecosystem. He just wants all seal killing to stop. He correctly asserts that WWF never claimed that the seals were responsible for the catastrophic decline in the cod stocks off eastern Canada.

Let us all be clear on one thing: It doesn't matter now exactly why the cod stocks were allowed to go into such a sharp decline. Yes, the DFO probably used inadequate science and law enforcement in protecting the cod from both Canadian and foreign fishing. Surely, human overfishing was partially responsible. That remains a historic scientific and political blunder. To add to the problem, glacial melt water from Greenland surely still affects the survival of cod eggs and fry, as the unusually cold water meets the warm Gulf stream, and in some areas, overwhelms the effect of it. Another factor was quite likely the effect of dynamite blasting used in the seismic testing for oil off the Grand Banks, a major cod spawning ground. Widespread shock waves and silt-clouding resulted for a number of years. Then in 1983, the IFAW orchestrated the European ban on seal pelts, effectively ending the large scale hunt. In the temporary absence of a large commercial hunt, the herd has grown from 1.8 million in the early 1980s to something over 5 million animals today.

It makes no practical sense for anyone to dwell on blame at this point. A multi-faceted change in the sea environment happened and now we are left with too many hungry seals, and too many hungry fishermen. The only way to pull out of this hole is to make money from the seals, while trimming the herd down to a size commensurate with its food supply. The seals won't be wiped out by this effort. They are a lot easier to count than are fish. The seals will eat any fish small enough to fit down their throats, as they opportunistically feed on anything that happens by. The seals are desperately hungry.

Paul Watson's latest diatribe against the WWF is ridiculous, but typical of his style of bringing attention to himself. Blunder threats and verbal attacks are his forte. Relevance and constructive comment are not. IWMC applauds Canada's efforts to amend this sorry situation on the East Coast. We hope for a more abundant and a better managed future.