Date: April 6, 2007
Subject:
Seal Alert-SA growing really
annoyed,
what are they so afraid of in the rescue of
seals?
Dear All Cape Fur Seal
Supporters,
What Are Fishery
Department's Worldwide, so Afraid of, in the Rescue of
Seals?
The attached newspaper article
forwarded by Paul Watson of Seashepherd, reveals certain tell-tale
signs of a very disturbed management policy. Stranded baby seal -
public compassion - threat by officials - seal protection laws -
mass slaughter of seals. Why would a fisheries official tasked with
protecting seals (who by the way as wildlife are
res
nullius, belonging to nobody, suddenly care
about the welfare of one single baby seal, when his entire
department is busy exterminating hundreds of thousands of seal
babies in the most obscene way possible, who are already drowning
from global warming - with a hook in a wooden club. It just
does not make any sense?
I personally, since 1999, have
encountered this illogic behaviour many, many times during the
course of my rescue of seals. I have been criminally charged,
arrested, threatened, intimidated and my home and vessels invaded -
and seals were confiscated, removed, killed or simply dumped,
thereafter. This drove me to do my rescues in the wild and at sea.
What are these fishery persons so afraid of? What is it that they
desperately do not want the general public to find out or
experience about these loving creatures of the sea.
After all those high level emails of
recent between various head's of department's, Seal Alert-SA
receives this as their official response (see attached).
Well to be honest, I have had it. Every
single marine species, they have exploited and harvested, has
declined, but not before they claimed under every constitution in
the world, that the fisheries were being sustainably and well
managed - except, and you guessed it - seals. Somehow, against all
logic and odds, whilst being slaughtered in their hundreds of
thousands, seals are thriving. According to them, there are more
seals today, than there were fifty years ago, even though all their
former islands are extinct. What part of the English language of
extinction - do they not understand. It must infuriate them
to no end, to see a species you hate and try desperately to wipe
from the face of the earth - still survive, against all odds,
munching on that so precious fish, as they do so.
Well Seal Alert-SA is going to stick it to
them, real good. Very soon, (with your financial help of course,
and my own), I am going to be the seal's human-taking voice, both
in sound and vision. Whatever "they" do from now on to the seals,
will be recorded and beamed in weekly short-films to a worldwide
growing audience over the internet. I plan to create a real-life
seal-soapy, so disturbing but oh so real.
Because of two things I am certain. One,
is that they don't want you to see the seals as they truly are, and
two, they don't want you to know and see what they are doing to
these precious wildlife, that need our protection.
My advice to everyone, go out and rescue a
seal or empower others to do it on your behalf, and watch this
space.
For the Seals
Francois Hugo Seal Alert-SA
* . * .
*
From:
Paul
Watson
Date: April 4, 2007
Subject: DOUBLESPEAK FROM THE
MINISTRY OF DEATH - Halifax Sunday Herald column on the seal
slaughter and he DFO
HALIFAX SUNDAY
HERALD COLUMN - March 18, 2007
DOUBLESPEAK
FROM THE MINISTRY OF DEATH
by
Silver
Donald Cameron
The
dog’s
frantic barking told George Garneau and Rebecca Baker that there
was something strange in their front yard in Thorburn one Sunday
morning in early March. It was a baby seal - and it was five
kilometres from the nearest salt water.
”He
must have dragged himself along his belly through
fields,”
Garneau
told the Canadian Press. “He
had to pass through forest and roads.”
What do
you do with a baby seal in your front yard? Garneau and Baker
called the SPCA and other animal-welfare agencies, but couldnt
reach anyone. So they herded him into a portable dog kennel, drove
him to the nearest beach, and set him free.
”He
seemed fine,”
said
Garneau. “He
was snarling and growling at us.”
When they
released him, the seal hot-footed it across the ice towards the
open water.
This couple did everything right. They tried to find
expert help - but failed, because it was Sunday. They devised their
own plan to help the seal, and carried it out successfully. The
next sound should be general applause.
But no. The next
sound was scolding and threats from Peter Taylor, the Department of
Fisheries and Ocean’s
“area chief of
conservation and protection”
- an
amazing title in an organization whose approach to conservation and
protection amounts to criminal negligence. Taylor said that the
couple should have let DFO take over.
”Seals
are protected under marine mammal regulations and so they are not
to be harrassed or harmed,”
said Taylor
ominously. “Fishery
officers have laid charges in the past.”
Got that?
Assisting a stranded seal is harassment under the marine mammal
regulations. For their compassion, Garneau and Baker are threatened
with charges.
The minor outrage is the bureaucratic idiocy of
that reaction. The far deeper outrage is that DFO officials have
the bare-faced effrontery to talk as though their regulations
served the welfare of wildlife. This is Orwellian double-speak. The
objective of the Seal Protection Regulations has always been to
ensure the efficient slaughter of large numbers of seals. Look it
up on DFO’s
website. The regulations govern how many seals may be killed, and
by what means - not more than 245,000 baby harp seals in 1971, for
instance, and not with gaffs or small clubs, but with the wicked
spiked clubs known as “hakapiks.”
To
call this “protection”
is to sin
against the English language - but the regulations moved on to sin
against democracy and civil rights in 1977, when, as the DFO site
coyly puts it, In an effort to keep order and good management on
the ice, observer permits [were first] required by all who wish to
view the hunt. This innocent-sounding requirement was enacted
primarily to ban Greenpeace and Brigitte Bardot from the ice floes.
Under these regulations, DFO can require permits for anyone
approaching seals on the ice - but it grants those permits to
sealers, and not to protesters.
DFO’s
true objective was to stifle legitimate democratic protest.
Earlier, Greenpeace had sprayed whitecoat seals with non-toxic
green dye, making their pelts worthless, and Bardot had drawn the
world’s
media to the ice, where they had filmed the whole gory horror that
is the seal hunt - infant seals with their heads bashed in, blood
spouting from their mouths and eyes; seals skinned alive; adult
seals watching from breathing holes while their young were clubbed
to death; streaks of blood like red driveways across the white ice
where heaps of pelts had been dragged to the sealing ships.
I watched the carnage at The Front one spring myself, on the ice
floes north of Newfoundland. It was the most nauseating thing I
ever saw. And the result of all that vivid media coverage was an
international outcry which ultimately ended the seal hunt - at
least for a few years.
But the hunt resumed in the 1990s,
and the regulations have become ever more draconian. In 2005, Paul
Watson’s
Sea Shepherd Society took a dozen observers to the ice. When they
attempted to film the slaughter, they were attacked by the sealers,
arrested by the RCMP, charged under the Seal Protection
Regulations, and fined $1000 each. Those who were not Canadian were
barred from re-entering the country.
Watson himself was fined
$3000 and banned from the seal hunt for two years. If he flouts the
ban, he can be charged with criminal contempt, which allows the
judge to throw the book at him.
And that’s
because Watson and his ilk genuinely want to protect seals.
DFO
is the Ministry of Death. Its despotic, fork-tongued regulations
exist to ensure that seals can be freely slaughtered without
interference from protesters who are legitimately appalled that
this country should host the world’s
largest slaughter of marine wildlife. That the regulations should
be brandished at people like Garneau and Baker is contemptible. The
very existence of those regulations stains the democratic
credentials of this nation.
Silver
Donald Cameron is a columnist for the Halifax Sunday Herald and is
also the author of numerous books, most recently
Sailing Away from Winter, an
account of his voyage from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas? His website
address is:
www.silverdonaldcameron.ca
* . * . *
RESPONSES
TO ISSUES RAISED AT A MEETING WITH SEAL ALERT SA
1.
Issues raised by Seal-Alert SA (Mr. Hugo and Ms Smith) 21 February
2007
a.
Feasibility of re-introducing seals to islands previously occupied
by seals
Response:
Seals
should re-occupy islands naturally and re-colonization should not
be forced. If the re-colonization is forced, long-term
sustainability cannot be assured. Seals are likely to naturally
select areas where they would have sufficient food, namely, sardine
and anchovies.
Historically the sardine and anchovy resource were most abundant on
the west coast and the sardine canning and anchovy fishmeal
industry thrived on the west coast. In recent years there has been
a substantial decline in the anchovy and sardine resource due to
environmental factors. This has been coupled with a south and
eastward shift in the main centre of distribution of these pelagic
resources. The pelagic resources are presently most abundant on the
south coast. This same trend has also been seen in rock lobster,
which was historically predominantly on the west coast.
b.
Seal exports and permit conditions
Response:
The
Department has engaged with authorities of Cape Nature and together
we will improve the permit conditions as well as ensuring
compliance through regular inspection of facilities and conditions
under which seals are kept. A specific time-frame for the export
will also be stated to ensure that the seals are not kept for
excessively long periods of time.
c.
Permit for Mr. Hugo (Seal Alert SA) for seal
rehabilitation
Response:
Seal
Alert SA through Mr. Hugo should apply for a permit to capture,
transport and possess seals explicitly for their rehabilitation.
The Department would however require the following
documentation:
i.
Identity Document
ii. Specifications of the facility:
(a) Facilities i.e. pools, depth, size, enclosures, cover,
isolation areas, temperature control, etc.
(b) Water quality, volume, turnover rate, water temperature,
chlorinators, filters, etc.
iii Previous experience with the species, complete record of
animals kept, mortalities and cause of death.
iv Rehabilitation plan with details of time frames (complete
protocols), feeding strategy, weaning strategy and release into the
wild.
v Veterinary services, where applicable
vi Reporting biannually on the number of seals rehabilitated, sex,
age/size, area of capture, area of release, duration of
rehabilitation, veterinary interventions where applicable,
etc.
The abovementioned application should be submitted together with
the required permit application fee to:
Customer Service Centre,
2nd
floor,
Foretrust Building,
Martin Hammerschlag Way,
Foreshore,
Cape Town.
The application should be marked for the attention of the Director:
Offshore & High Seas Fisheries Management, Marine & Coastal
Management.
d. Release of 2 seals from East London
Aquarium
Response:
The
two seals at the East London Aquarium have been in captivity at the
facility for a total period of 3 months. During the period of
captivity the seals have been fed through human intervention and
have acclimatized to captive living conditions. Releasing the seals
back into the wild may pose an ecological risk to the environment
into which they are released as they may have acquired certain
pathogens while in captivity.
Another concern is that the seals have been hand fed and as such
have lost their fear of humans. They are presently part of a
national facility which caters for education and display of wild
animals. The Aquarium also has an excellent history of keeping
animals healthy in captivity. We have confirmed that the two seals
have adapted well to the Aquarium and are in good health and that
the facility has recently been inspected by the
NSPCA.
In conclusion, Seals, Seabirds and Shorebirds will be managed in
terms of a policy for these species. The policy will be finalized
within the next two months and would then be published in the
Government Gazette. Implementation of the policy will follow and
would include the management of seal and seabird interactions as
per the policy.
Theressa Frantz
Director: Offshore & High Seas Fisheries Management
Date: 5 April 2007