Start Of Annual Seal Hunt

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32252, 21 March 1970, Page 11

Start Of Annual Seal Hunt

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

HALIFAX (Nova Scotia), March 20.

Canada’s controversial seal hunt, in which the animals are clubbed to death on ice floes, will start at dawn today in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

The annual hunt, which in the past has aroused outcries from conservationist and animal protection groups, will be observed by fisheries officers. The quota in the gulf is 50,000 and limited to seals not less than one year old. Twelve Canadian ships were reported standing off the ice fields and there were reports that 15 Norwegian vessels were headed for the hunt, a Fisheries Department spokesman said.

They will work both in the gulf and- in international waters off the Labrador Coast where there is no limit to the catch.

The perilous hunt is expected to be made even more

dangerous by wind and tide conditions which were pushing the ice pack towards heavier seas where they would be loosened, causing them to drift apart. Men with clubs and guns work on the ice floes on foot.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare yesterday charged the Canadian Government with “tactics designed to avoid embarrassment” by cutting off independent observers from the gulf. Referring to a ban on aircraft landing near the hunt, the fund’s chief executive, Mr Brian Davies, said it was an example of the Canadian Government’s “arrogant and near-fascist methods.”