Hundreds of thousand of
seals are being killed today with no clear
understanding of the ecological impacts.
10/03/2005 Off Canada's east coast, harp
seals are giving birth to their offspring.
But their future may be short-lived, as Canada
prepares to announce what could be the biggest
seal hunt ever. It's a hunt justified by inaccurate,
incomplete and out-of-date science that could
threaten the survival of the harp seal.
It is only a matter of days before the Canadian
government signals the beginning of what may
be the biggest seal hunt in history. 350,000
seals could die this year as part of a three-year
government program to kill a million seals.
When undertaking the largest hunt of marine
mammals on the globe you would think the Canadian
government has a rock-solid justification
backed up by sound figures. After all, they
would not hunt so many seals if this threatened
the long-term survival of the species, right?
Wrong. Analysis of the justification of the
hunt in our report "Canadian Seal Hunt:
No Management and No Plan", highlights
a number of gaping holes in the government's
case:
Canadian scientists only count the population
every five years -- so any declines in population
based on new birth counts could take up to
15 years or longer to be detected and verified.
The methods used by Canada to monitor the
hunt quotas fail to count seals that are wounded
but escape to die later, seals killed by illegal
hunting and those that are killed for their
organs and then discarded.
Future population estimates don't consider
other changes, like climate change, that could
adversely affect the seal population. Changes
in sea-ice can have a profound impact on the
feeding and breeding habits of seals.
Other smaller hunts and threats to seals
are also ignored when estimating future seal
populations.
Mhairi Dunlop from Greenpeace International
explains why the hunt should not continue:
"It is irresponsible and scientifically
unjustifiable of the Canadian government to
allow the killing of nearly a million seals
when their own scientists are unable to accurately
substantiate the size of the herd, the actual
number of seals taken in the hunt or the impact
of external pressures like climate change
on the health of the population". The
Canadian government has a long history of
mismanaging marine ecosystems, yielding to
the short-term interests of the fishing and
sealing industries at great cost to jobs and
marine life."
Don't worry, we know what we are doing
Canadian government claims that the seal
herd is "healthy and abundant" and
"at a level where there are no conservation
concerns," are inaccurate at best and
ironically reminiscent of past claims concerning
the Atlantic Cod. The world's most abundant
fishery, on the Canadian Grand Banks, was
fished to oblivion with the help of government
subsidies. Rather than learn from this mistake
the government seems to be repeating the same
sorry tale with seals in the place of cod.
Government scientists have produced data
that is overly optimistic, inaccurate and
out of date. There is simply no justification
for this hunt. If Canada really takes the
precautionary principle seriously then it
should err on the side of conservation before
the seals become another casualty of Canada's
gross mismanagement of fragile ecosystems
and species.
