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New seal hunt rules ensure bloodied end

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  • Canada`s seal hunt season begins
  • New laws demand seals dead before skinned
  • Animal rights groups are not mollified

CANADA`S contentious seal hunt starts tomorrow with new rules requiring hunters to make sure the animals are dead before they are skinned.

But the move has done little to curb protests by animal rights activists.

Department of Fisheries and Oceans spokesman Phil Jenkins yesterday outlined the new directives for the largest marine mammal hunt in the world.

As a condition for getting a sealing licence, the rules demand that hunters, after clubbing the animals on the head or shooting them, sever the arteries under the seals` flippers.

"We`re just trying to make sure there is no possible way that a seal could be skinned while it was irreversibly unconscious but not dead," Mr Jenkins said.

"It`s really going an extra distance to make sure that it`s humane as it can be."

Animal rights groups were not mollified.

"They`ve added bleeding to the killing process," said Rebecca Aldworth, director of Canadian wildlife issues for the Humane Society of the United States. "This won`t change anything."

This year`s total allowable catch has been set at 275,000 seals, up from 270,000 last year.

The total allowable catch was 335,000 two years ago, but poor ice conditions led to the change last year.

Seventy per cent of the seals will be taken in an area off Newfoundland`s north coast known as the Front, while 30 per cent will be taken in the Gulf of St Lawrence -  the first stage of the hunt.

"People around the world are shocked to know that Canada, which is perceived as one of the most progressive nations in the world, allows this outdated, archaic slaughter to continue," Ms Aldworth said.

The European Union banned the white pelts of baby seals in 1983 and is considering a ban on all seal products.

The Netherlands and Belgium ban seal products. The US has banned Canadian seal products since 1972.

Animal rights groups say Canada`s seal hunt is cruel, difficult to monitor, ravages the seal population and does not provide a lot of money for sealers.

But sealers and the federal Fisheries Department have defended the hunt as sustainable, humane, well-managed and a necessary source of income for hunters.

"There is an awful lot of diplomatic activity going on," Mr Jenkins said.

"We`re doing our best to make sure that the facts and the science of this issue are put squarely in front of European politicians and not the emotion."

The department estimated the total harp seal population to be 5.9 million in 2004, the last time it conducted a seal population survey.

The Government says there were about 1.8 million seals in the 1970s.

The population rebounded after Canada started managing its seal hunts.


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Today`s Top Picks

What`s in a name?

JAMES is successful, Ann is ugly and Lucy is lucky according to assumptions we make about others based on their names.

Font size: +-

Send this article:PrintEmail

Have Your Say

We welcome your comments on this story. Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Please provide your full name. We also require a working email address - not for publication, but for verification. The location field is optional.Read our publication guidelines.

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Search for more stories on this topic on Newstext, our news archive service. Click here

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TIC TAC Taste of Music WIN the ultimate music experience 12 double passes to 12 concerts.
 
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