South
African Government Approved 'Army' of Seal Shooting Fishermen
Date: May 27, 2008
Seals
shot illegally by thousands of government approved fishermen
carrying guns
The stark reality of gross mismanagement by South African
government officials tasked with protecting our marine environment
and the sadistic killing of protected seals daily by an 'army' of
government permitted fishermen who are all permitted to carry guns
at sea to shoot seals - is revealed in just two letter (see
below).
The Seal Protection Act written in 1973, clearly states, "make
regulations prohibiting or taking on board, without lawful reason,
on any fishing boat, of any fire-arm or any instrument or substance
(explosives) with which seals may be killed, disturbed or
frightened away".
35 years later, thousands of seals criminally murdered by
government approved fishermen, and still the Minister refuses
to introduce
a regulation to ban guns in
fishing.
There is only one reason 30 000 fishermen take guns to sea - and
that is to shoot and kill protected seals.
So whether the Government is banning seals from 99% of their former
seal islands, causing the new-born baby seals to drown, or it turns
a blind eye to 30 000 fishermen shooting and killing seals daily,
or licenses seal clubbers to club to death 85 000 pups, or
commercially shots 9000 bulls for their penis, or just for trophy
hunting and sport, or calls thousands of seals drowned in any one
of 65 000 commercial trawl fishing nets deployed opposite seal
breeding colonies, as incidental seal drowning - the end result, is
that government is NOT protecting our seals.
Please write to the South African Minister of Environment, Martinus
Van Schalkwyk, (Marika Willemse <</span>Mwillemse@deat.gov.za>) or his special
advisor Dr Shaun Vorster (<</span>svorster@deat.gov.za>)or Dr Monde Mayekiso,
Deputy Director of Marine and Coastal Management (Pumeza Jantjies
<</span>Pjantjies@deat.gov.za>) or Director
General of DEAT, Pam Yako (pyako@deat.gov.za).
Please voice your concern that this has been allowed to continue
for 35 years where thousands of seals have been murdered, and call
for an immediate Ban on Guns in Fishing, and please sign the
petition, www.petitiononline.com/Rrancois/petition.html !
(See letters
below)
For
the Seals
Francois
Hugo Seal Alert-SA
----- Original Message -----
From:
Seal
Alert-SA
To:
Shaun
Vorster ;
Marika
Willemse ;
Pumeza
Jantjies ;
Sent:
Tuesday, May 27,
2008 12:23 PM
Subject:
MCM
Permitted Fishermen Murder Seals Off Hout Bay Fw: Fishermans
behaviour
Dear
Dr Mayekiso and Dr Vorster,
Please could you advise what your department is doing about the
contents of the letter below. The contents of which will be
forwarded to my worldwide group of seal supporters. This is a daily
occurrence off Hout Bay, I have a 30 000-strong petition signed in
over 80 countries around the world to ban guns in fishing in South
Africa. The Seal Protection Act has empowered the Minister to act
and ban guns in fishing since 1973. 35 years of seal abuse is no
excuse ! Perpetrated by thousands of permitted fishermen
daily.
The
Department should be ashamed of its conduct in this regard,
allowing such criminal activity.
It
is further noted, that following our meeting on the 12 May 2008, in
which considerable effort went into my 122 slide show presentation
- that no response or decision has been forthcoming from the
department in this regard. Ignoring this species decline is
unacceptable.
Has
MCM prosecuted any fishermen EVER for illegally shooting or
smashing in the heads of protected seals?????
Please could you state your position in writing,
urgently.
For the
Seals
Francois
Hugo Seal Alert-SA
-----
Original Message -----
From:
Bill
Fish
Sent:
Tuesday, May 27,
2008
Subject:
Fishermans
behaviour
It is with a heavy
heart that I write this letter. I had the opportunity to “ride
along” with a commercial fishing boat from Hout Bay on the weekend
to the snoek run off Olifantsbos which is towards Cape Point. The
weather was perfect, despite the thick fog which made running out
rather nerve wrecking for a person not knowing any better. The
entire experience was generally a pleasant one, although the blood
and butchering of the snoek species was borderline barbaric. It
seemed unbelievable that the sea could sustain this heavy assault
on the species.
The
crux of this letter is as follows:
On
our way out to the fishing area, one could almost follow the fleet
from the constant trail of rubbish discarded by the craft ahead of
us. We must have passed approximately 100 plastic cans of oil, lots
soft plastic cooldrink bottles, empty cigarette boxes, discarded
bait boxes and a general trail of rubbish. This saddened me as it
must be easy to keep this in one place on the boat to be thrown
away on shore.
One
boat hooked a Mako shark. Once it was on the side of the boat, the
fisherman clubbed it twice on its head so it was stunned, then
lifted its tail out of the water, took a knife and cut the end of
its tail off so that it could no longer swim and discarded tail and
the semi-conscious shark into the water.
One
boat hooked a seal in the mouth. The fisherman pulled its head out
of the water, leaned out of the boat and proceeded to hit it on the
head approximately 100 times until the seals head split open, blood
splattering everywhere and then was cut free to sink into a pool of
blood.
Whilst I was out there
for a few hours, 8 seals were shot in the head by skippers of
boats. The seals were coming close to the boat and the skippers
would shot them to prevent them from stealing the snoek off the
lines.
This
sort of behavior is absolutely barbaric and unforgivable. I urge
the powers that be to investigate these claims and act upon them.
We constantly criticize foreign fisherman for their behavior
towards whales, sharks etc, but our very own locals are behaving in
just as atrocious manner. I was warned not to say anything to the
skippers or fishermen for fear of my own safety.
The
issue of discharging the weapons in public is clearly illegal. The
SAPS should be investigating this.
The
issue of animal cruelty in beating seal heads into a pulp is surely
also illegal. What sort of person has it in their heart to perform
such acts? How did that person become so barbaric and manage to
carry such anger?
The
issue of the shark is just as barbaric and
devastating.
I
remain under my pen-name of Bill for fear of my own safety and the
safety of my family, but will keep on raising these issues until
something is actively done about them.
Please could your
organization act on this and see what / where you can be of
assistance.
Thankyou for sending me the letter, I also received it from
other
sources.Well done to Billfish for at least trying to do
something.
As those of us who are on the sea on a daily basis are aware this
is an
everyday occurence.I have seen fishermen bait seals and then when
the seal
lifts it's head out of the water to take the fish they blow it's
brains
out.When I have confronted them I have had knives pulled on me as
have
others.It is also a common occurence for "tailing" to take place
with
sharks.This is when they catch a shark cut the tail and then allow
it to
bleed to death so that it does not bother them again.Virtually
everyday this
last week more than 2 tonnes of 30-50year old soupfin sharks were
being
landed at Millars point.
Shark longlining is now legally taking place in False bay, the list
just
goes on and MCM does F... all other than liberally handing out
permits
whilst scientists and others warn against it.
To weeks back I was involved in another battle when a well known
sport
fishing boat clubbed several great shearwaters to death to retrieve
hooks,
R1.50 hooks on a R2 million boat!!!
On many occasions I have seen these wealthy fishermen club blue
sharks
etc.Some of these same fishermen are the ones who harass us at Seal
Island
encroaching on natural predations etc.
In 1994 I was involved when Theo Ferreira had the balls to lay a
charge
against the seal shooters and they got a R200-00 fine and basically
told us
to f. off. Bottom line MCM through sheer and utter incompetance is
to
blame.Instead of sending boats to check me for my commercial shark
diving
licence where I have been operating within the law and educating
foreigners
about the beauty of sharks in a non consumptive way for over 12
years they
should be enforcing the law with those who rape and pollute the
sea.
I will forward this to as many people in the know that I can,
bottom line
though is talk is cheap and we all need to get out there and make
these
people realise what they are doing is wrong and get MCM to be
accountable
for what is happening.
I will raise this issue with MCM and as many foreign groups as I
can.If we
can't stop it we will at least get as many poeple aware of it as we
can so
the publics " sorry for the poor fishermean attitude " can change
to a "
reap what you sow attitude".
Chris
