Canada's controversial seal hunt slowed by weather, thin ice

By James Stairs Apr 6, 2007, 11:01 GMT

Montreal - The Canadian seal hunt, always a flashpoint as fishermen and animal-rights activists waging war on the icy floes off Canada's East Coast, continued Thursday with the two groups battling the elements and each other.

Nasty weather and thin ice have limited access to the seals for hunters, while also impairing anti-hunt activists from obtaining gruesome pictures of hunters clubbing seals to arouse opposition and rally sentiment against the practise.

Thin ice due to a warm winter in the region has already killed many of the young harp seals coveted by hunters for their pelts, as they cannot swim for the first weeks after birth and drown when the ice gives way.

Phil Jenkins, spokesman for the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), reported Thursday that approximately 2,350 seals had been slaughtered in the first two stages of the hunt, a fraction of the quota of 270,000 seals that the DFO set for 2007, down from 365,000 last year.

The first of several stages in the annual slaughter began Monday in the Gulf of St Lawrence off the coast of Newfoundland, and normally makes up 30 per cent of the total quota.

The hunters, who are mostly fishermen looking to supplement their income since the collapse of the region's cod-fishing industry in 1992, can kill three species: harp, grey and hooded seals. Harp seals are the most prized for the high value of their fur, sold mostly to buyers in China, Russia and Norway. The blubber, or fat, from the animal is sold for oil.

'It's been slow,' Jenkins said. 'If there are not enough seals out there, a lot of vessels just decide not to go. In a normal year, at this time in the northern gulf, we normally have about 40 boats out there. Today, we had about 12.'

He said that prospects were better for hunters entering the second, much larger phase of the hunt on the ice floes off the north shore of the province, where the remaining 70 per cent of the cull is collected.

The market for seal fur skyrocketed in 2006, when hunters received an average of 95 Canadian dollars (82 US dollars) per pelt. A year earlier, the average was 55 Canadian dollars (47 US dollars).

The Humane Society of the United States, which has three helicopters in the region to monitor the hunt and transport international media, reported Thursday that the first killing of baby harp seals had been observed.

Humane Society activist Rebecca Aldworth, a native of the region, blogged about what she observed from the air, reporting that she came across several boats Thursday morning.

'There are so few seal pups in this area,' she wrote. 'And yet sealers are clubbing and shooting to death every one they find. Below me on the ice, a pool of blood marked the death of another tragic victim of this awful slaughter.'

Earlier, DFO officials claimed that '90 to 100 per cent' of the young seal population was wiped out by the weak ice. Jenkins appeared to back away Thursday from those estimates.

'We don't know what (the exact drowning mortality rate) is, but we expect it to be quite high,' he said.

Although it has been banned in Canada since 1983, the hunting of 'white coats' - the youngest Harp seals - continues to rile activists, who point out that hunters can legally kill seals as young as 12 days old. Images of hunters clubbing the defenceless cubs, leaving pools of blood on the white snow, have galvanized opponents of the hunt and attracted celebrity advocates including Beatles icon Paul McCartney and French actress Brigitte Bardot.

In March, European Union lawmakers announced that they would study the hunt and consider whether to ban Canadian seal products. Several countries including Belgium and the United States have already imposed sanctions.

A group of European politicians will observe the hunt first-hand later this month.

Public opinion polls in Europe strongly condemn the hunt. In 2004, a poll commissioned by the government revealed that 60 per cent of Canadians support it.

The slaughter, anti-hunt activists argue, does nothing more than feed the fur industry and pander to vote-rich fishermen while barbarically abusing and endangering the seal population. They also contend that the costs of staging and enforcing the hunt actually negate its financial benefits, pegged by the DFO at 33 million Canadian dollars (29 million US dollars).

The Canadian government asserts that the species is strong, estimating stocks to be around 5.5 million seals, up from 1.8 million five years ago, and that the revenue is important for the economically depressed region.

Several groups including the Humane Society have recently criticized the DFO's decision to limit observers' access to the first two stages of the hunt.

DFO officials explained that the decision was taken because the number of observers outweighed the number of hunters in the early stages of the cull, but that licensed observers would have full access to the next phase, scheduled for mid-April.