Are seals scapegoats?
 
Little is known about seals, but fishermen and environmentalists are each certain they’re right Published: The Globe and Mail, February 29, 1992, FOCUS By Deborah Jones, Halifax THE federal government, responding to a crisis in Newfoundland's fishing industry, wants to renew Canada's seal hunt. Animal-rights activists promise another round of inspired opposition to any resumption of commercial sealing. For scientists, information on which to base such decisions is as murky as the water of the Grand Banks. There are more unknowns about seals, they say, than knowns. The number of harp seals - those most blamed for the decline in northern cod stocks - is very loosely estimated at 1.4 to 4.2 million. Nobody knows how much wild seals eat, though captive animals daily consume food equal to six per cent of their weight. Nobody knows what wild seals find most tasty in the sea's smorgasbord, though there's evidence they're opportunistic dinners, eating whatever is available. Nobody understands the role that seals play in infecting fish with so- called cod worms. The ugly parasites are found in the stomachs of seals and in the flesh of fish, forcing fish companies to remove them before sale. Scientists believe there is a link between fish and seals in the parasite's life cycle. This lack of information has not deterred the two sides of the cull issue. Fisheries and Oceans Minister John Crosbie, who this week reduced quotas for fishermen, blamed seal herds for part of the drastic reduction of northern cod supplies, and called for controls on seal populations. His comments delighted thousands of Newfoundland fishermen, who believe seals have been a prime cause of the devastation of their livelihood. On the other side remains Greenpeace, the environmental catalyst behind the formal ending of Canada's seal hunt in 1987. To Greenpeace, the seals are scapegoats for Mr. Crosbie's own "mismanagement." "What astounds me," says Dan McDermott, an ocean ecology researcher with Greenpeace in Toronto, "is that the media (have) allowed Crosbie to get away with blaming seals without providing so much as a shred of evidence that the seal population has had any impact at all on the northern cod stocks." More than 30,000 eastern Canadian jobs depend on the northern cod that swim off Newfoundland's coast. The fish are caught, processed in plants, frozen and shipped mostly to the United States, where they end up as fish dinners in restaurants, hospitals and homes. In recent years, fishermen haven't found enough cod to keep all their trawlers and fish plants in business, and they believe increasing numbers of seals - which they compare to rats in a dump - are eating the cod, or are at least competing for the same food. Scientists believe the northern cod biomass - the total weight of all such fish in the ocean - was three million tonnes in 1962. This year, the biomass is estimated at just 750,000 tonnes, less than the annual catch about two decades ago. Fishermen have been unable to catch even reduced quotas, and Mr. Crosbie has now cut their 1992 fishing quotas to 120,000 tonnes from 185,000 tonnes. The government's decision, he says, should be accompanied by a control of seal populations. For the Canadian public, the lingering image of the seal hunt is of newborn harp seals with soft white fur and huge innocent eyes having their heads smashed in by club-wielding Newfoundland hunters operating from big offshore ships. This view of the hunt, presented in the 1970s by Greenpeace, damaged Canada's entire fur industry and threatened to harm sales of fish products through boycotts. By 1983, when the European Community banned the import of baby harp seal pelts, markets had effectively vanished. Following a federal royal commission report on sealing, the Canadian government, citing the reality of public opinion, formally banned the offshore seal pup hunt in 1987. Most researchers agree that since the hunt ended, seals that previously would have been harvested as babies have matured and are reproducing. "Our traditional position has been we're not able to quantify the impact of seals on fish stocks," says Jean-Jacques Maguire, a scientist with the Canadian Atlantic fisheries scientific advisory committee, "But we do know the number of seals has increased. Those pups not harvested in 1983 and after matured at age six or seven, and started reproducing in 1990. We can't deny that it has an impact." Seals, says Art Pearce of the Canadian Sealers Association, "have just exploded in population." Included in the species of seals which roam Atlantic Canada's coastal waters are gray seals, harbour seals, harp seals, hooded seals and ringed seals. Hunting has concentrated on the harp and hooded seals. Recent demands for seal herd culls have been directed mainly at harp seals that share the same waters as northern cod. EVEN without the seal kill, there's no shortage of schemes to get rid of the animals. One of the more innovative was a Newfoundland fisherman's suggestion this month that Canada give half a million seals to Russia in food aid. Another is research on birth control drugs, for gray seals, being conducted at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Some fishermen and sealers, afraid of raising the ire of animal-rights groups, insist that markets be found for seal meat and pelts. Henry Demone, president of National Sea Products Ltd., one of the biggest fish companies, urges further seal research before any action is taken. And Garry Stenson, a fisheries department biologist studying seal populations with the federal fisheries department in St. John's, says: "If you wanted to have a cull, or recommend a cull, you'd have to have some concept of what the impact of killing a certain number of seals would have. I don't think we're at a state where we could say that." Even those supportive of a seal hunt have some caveats. Wilfred Bartlett, a fisherman on Newfoundland's northeast coast and an official with the Newfoundland Inshore Fishermen's Association, says: "You've got to harvest seals to save cod stocks. But what the appropriate thing to do with seals is, I don't know . . . I don't believe in that kind of thing, killing seals and throwing them away. There should be a market for the seal meat and the skins." The market for seals is meagre, although in Newfoundland the flesh is eaten and the flippers are considered a delicacy. Despite Greenpeace's successful campaign against the offshore pup hunt, a much smaller, low-profile inshore hunt is still carried out by landsmen with rifles who hunt mature seals close to shore. The 55,000 animals they harvest yearly (far below the quota of 186,000 animals) are sold for their meat and pelts, mostly in Newfoundland, and garner about $1-million a year. Animal-rights groups have mostly ignored the inshore hunt, but have consistently opposed any hint that the offshore hunt will be renewed. Their opposition has been effective until now, when the fishing industry crisis has become severe. "Measures should now be taken to start bringing the seal population under control," says Mr. Crosbie. Mr. Pearce of the St. John's-based Canadian Sealers Association says: "We feel it's time for the Canadian government to support an industry that was destroyed although there was no scientic justification for cancelling the (white coat) seal hunt." Curiously, as fishermen face a crisis, seals have become uncharacteristically aggressive in their hunt for food, lunging hungrily out of the water as fishing boats haul nets on board. Are they, like fishermen, affected by the lack of fish? "The people on our trawlers are reporting more seals than they've ever seen before," says Vic Young, president of Fishery Products International Ltd. of St. John's, which laid off 1,000 people in Catalina, Nfld., earlier this month. "Our captains are reporting seals around in the water when they take the cod in (in giant nets winched onto fishing ships), and that's not normal." Canada is trying to understand the cod depletion by looking at environmental factors, such as the coldness of Atlantic waters. But even if low temperatures had some effect, they could not be regulated. Ottawa is also lobbying fishermen from the European Community to reduce catches just outside Canada's 200-mile economic zone. But EC officials can be expected to talk back. Seals, however, may be manageable - and they don't talk at all. Copyright Deborah Jones 1992 About this website: Text and photos by Deborah Jones except where otherwise noted. Please contact me for reprint rights. All material copyrighted ../About.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0
Battle lines drawn amid ignorance over Newfoundland seal cull
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