The Canadian sealing fleet is still stuck in the ice off Newfoundland. The Toronto Star reports conditions are moderating, the icebreakers are free, and many of the longliners, which hunt seals on the side, may be freed tomorrow. But the Star also reports a Newfoundland sealer, Desmond Adams, as saying, “we all go out for the love of it rather than the money, which isn’t there anymore.” He adds, “No one’s going to stop hunting if they don’t have to. We need someone to tell us, ‘No, this is too dangerous. You can’t do it.’ Newfoundlanders are good at following orders. They’ve told us we can’t fish and we can’t do this or that. And we don’t.”
“No one’s getting rich from the seal hunt,” he said, “at least not among the hunters. The price of pelts is down to about $55, about half what it used to be.” That means the Canadian taxpayer is footing a bill worth millions of dollars to provide four full time ice-breakers, plus the cost of the Canadian Coast Guard flying in groceries, to assist the lads on their seasonal slaughter gone bad.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society reports that over 60,000 seal pups are available under the quota of 275,000. Over 200,000 have already been clubbed or slaughtered, not taking into account the estimated 250,000 pups killed by melting ice from global warming in the Gulf of St. Lawrence last month.
The Canadian government has acted very irresponsibly in allowing vessels that are not ice-strengthened to venture into these conditions, says Sea Shepherd founder, Captain Paul Watson. “There is a double standard. My ship the Farley Mowat is an ice-class ship and I have more experience in navigating in ice conditions than most of these sealers, but the Coast Guard did everything they could to prevent us from going into the ice to save seals citing their concerns for our ‘safety’.”
Come on, Canada. Stop it. Stop lying about the economic necessity of the hunt. Stop awarding the permits. Stop wasting money on the seaboys with clubs and a twisted sense of fun. –Julia Whitty
