Sealers cancel hunt for the baby harp

Press, 10 March 1984, Page 11

Sealers cancel hunt for the baby harp

NZPA-NYT Halifax Nova Scotia Canadian sealers yesterday callled off their annual hunt' of baby harp seals, citing the effects of international boycotts against seal hunting. The announcement came as representatives of Canada’s fishing industry asked for a halt to the hunt, which had led to boycotts of Canadian fish products in Britain, and was beginning to hurt sales in the United States.

“It is very serious,” said James Morrow, senior vice president of National Sea Products, Ltd, Canada’s largest fishing company. “We have firm reports from firm customers that orders could be cancelled” if the baby seal hunt went ahead.

The announcement of the hunt’s cancellation was made by Kirk Smith, executive director of the Canadian Sealers Association, after a meeting of the organisation’s board. He said the group’s objective was to restrict Canada’s seal hunt to killing adult grey seals with rifles, considered a more humane means of slaughter. Seal hunts in Greenland and Iceland carried out by such means have not engendered

anywhere near the protests spurred by the Canadian hunt. Controversy has long surrounded the hunt of the white, cuddly-looking baby harp seals, thousands of which have annually been clubbed to death on ice floes near the island province of Newfoundland. Last year, the European Economic Community voted to ban imports of the baby seal pelts. In response to that action, baby harp seals were not harvested last year, even though sealers argue that the clubbing is as humane as the slaughter of cattle and other animals killed for food. They had previously been killed for more than 400 years.

This year, however, pressure from the International Fund for Animal Welfare mounted, as the conservation group successfully organised boycotts of Canadian fish by main British supermarkets. Recently, Safeway, Ltd, placed a ban on Canadian fish products at its 105 retail outletss, joining the 400 retail stores of Tesco, Ltd, which imposed a ban at the beginning of the year. The threat of a big United States boycott appeared to be the determining factor in

forcing what the sealers group called “a complete moratorium” on the baby seal hunt. Earlier this week, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Allan MacEachen, suggested the Canadian Government was considering reversing its long-standing support of the hunt. “We haven’t reached any decision point, but we are considering what we ought to do,” Mr MacEachen said. Other Federal Government officials struck a defiant tone that appeared to have been outrun by the sealers’ decision. Pierre De Bane, the Federal Fisheries Minister, for example, vowed not to yield to “all those criminals and people resorting to blackmail.” The decision by the sealers’ group—mainly Newfoundlanders, but also including Indian and Inuit hunters—only affects the hunting of baby harp seals. Killing of grey seals with guns will continue. The sealing official said his group represents virtually all Canadian sealers, so the decision will likely be followed. It appeared to be a direct response to the threat to fish exports to the United States, which exceed $1 billion annually. Even

exports of salmon from British Columbia, more than 5000 km from the area of the hunt, have been hurt “I don’t think anybody took the protest seriously until people started talking about stopping buying Canadian fish,” Mr Morrow said, emphasising that he was motivated by economic necessity, not principle. “It shows what a bunch of guys can do with a pack of lies,” he said of the environmentalists’ success. Both sales and prices of all seals, not just the “white coats,” have fallen drastically in the face of environmentalists’ protest. The group’s move appeared to be geared to recapture this market, although there is some suspicion that protesters’ real goal is an end to all sealing. Mark Small, president of the sealers’ association, said an end to all sealing would be disastrous for many Newfoundlanders, who depend on sealing to supplement their meager income from fishing and unemployment cheques. He emphasised that the 35 familis in his home town of Wild Cove, Newfoundland, need sealing income for their survival. “If we don’t take seals, we have no other income,” he said.