Date: June 24, 2007
Namibia's Baby Seal Slaughter Goes 'Live' Daily On Advertising Wall in South Africa
Dear All Cape Fur Seal Supporters,
Namibia's Baby Seal
Slaughter Goes 'Live' Daily On Advertising Wall in South
Africa
The Star-Wall in Johannesburg CBD
donated by the Star Newspaper
The team at Uncaged
Action Group, have done it again. Designed and painted by Anastaya
Eliseeva and her team, Aragorn, Jacky and Shantal. The senseless,
cruellest and most sadistic slaughter of endangered seals is now up
for all to see on the Star-Wall, an advertising wall donated by
the, The Star Newspaper in busy Johannesburg's central business
district.
By far the best known
advertising wall in South Africa, which is actually a land-mark to
those in the know, and situated on one of the busy roads that lead
into the city. Now thousands of passing daily motorists will know
about the seal slaughter in Namibia.
Thanks to Anastaya and
her team, South African's can no longer claim "they" did not know
about the senseless seal slaughter, of our own Cape fur seals being
slaughtered in Namibia.
On July 1, sealers will begin rounding up nursing baby seals still
suckling with their mothers, and daily for the next 139-days club
and stab the life out of these endangered tiny baby infant seals in
their quest to reach their 85 000 pup quota set by the Namibian
government each year.
So com'on South Africa,
log onto WWW.SEALALERT.ORG and give our Cape fur seals some
support.
For the Seals
Francois Hugo Seal Alert-SA
Seal Alert-SA Press
Release
June 21, 2007
10
days to go to the annual Baby Genocidal Seal Slaughter in
Namibia.
On National TV Dutch
Environmental Minister Sends a Clear Message to Namibia and its
Three Sealing Companies -
Your Imports are No Longer Welcome, and are Banned
Protests in South Africa and
London
On Wednesday the 20th June, (just 11
days before Namibia is to commence its annual slaughter of baby
Cape fur seals), the Netherlands Environmental Minister Gerda
Verburg, told Parliament and recorded on National Television, that
after due procedures are passed, the new law will become effective
after this summer (September). Stating, "The most time consuming is
the total ban on Cape fur seal products. The international trade in
these products is regulated very strictly and some additional steps
had to be taken to reach a total ban".
Seal Alert-SA and its supporters
have sent Minister Verburg a thank you letter, as well as to the
Social Party and PartyforDiere, for their unwavering assistance in
having Cape fur seal products, which will include skins, furs and
oil products, banned in total from import into the
Netherlands.
The Netherlands now joins the four
largest in-coming international tourist countries to Namibia, like
the US, SA, Belgium and Germany countries, to recently
introduce laws which ban imports of Cape fur seal products
specifically.
In the process, sending a clear
message to Namibian Minister of Fisheries Iyambo and his three
sealing concessionaires, that their sick international trade of
baby Cape fur seal and adult bull seal products, in any form, are
no longer wanted in the Netherlands.
Hopefully with the US, Mexico,
Belgium, Italy, Germany and now the Netherlands banning
specifically Cape fur seal product imports. The Namibian Ministry
will take note, and announce an end to its horrific sealing policy
of clubbing nursing baby seals to death commercial in their annual
cull, before the start of this year's sealing season just days
away.
Alternatively, Seal Alert-SA will be
seeking a tourism and diamond boycott of Namibia's products.
No country in the world or Minister,
has the right to endanger or risk the extinction of a species, and
we will do everything in our power to ensure that they don't, said
Francois Hugo of Seal Alert-SA
Although the trade in Cape fur
seals, a listed endangered species, under Appendix II, is
controlled by the United Nations Convention In Trade of
Endangered Species (UN/CITES), our official complaint to the Cites
Secretariat to intervene to stop the 2006 genocidal slaughter of
all the new-born baby seals last year, appeared to fall on deaf
ears. Even through the Namibian Ministry issued a press release,
confirming the majority of seals were already dying from
starvation, prior to the start of the sealing season, and that
sealers could not find enough alive pups to fill their largest
quota on record of 85 000 baby seals, the second largest seal
harvest in the world.
Seal Alert-SA hopes, the Netherlands
decision will send a loud and clear message to the Cites
Secretariat, as well.
See below for published Newspaper
Articles.
For the Seals
Francois Hugo Seal Alert-SA
Newspaper DE TELEGRAAF
we 20 jun 2007, 18:29
BAN ON SEAL PRODUCT TRADE AFTER THIS
SUMMER
THE HAGUE
The trade in seal
products will be banned in The Netherlands after this summer. This
was announced by Minister ofAgriculture Gerda Verburg this
Wednesday in the 2nd chamber of Parliament.
Verburg declares in a
letter that the Raad van State has advised on the proposed ban on
the the sale of harp seal, hooded seal and Cape fur seal products.
After due procedures are passed, the new law can become effective
after this summer.
Most time consuming
is the total ban of Cape fur seal products. The international trade
in these products is regulated very strictly and some additional
steps have to be taken to reach a total ban. It is expected that
this can be done before the end of this year.
An exception for this
trade ban is made for the traditional seal hunt of the Inuit, the
Greenland eskimo's, for live animals and products that have been
regularly imported into The Netherlands.
In the last days of
his function Verburgs predecessor Minister Veerman promised the 2nd
chamber such a ban, meeting the wish of the 2nd chamber, expressing
its abomination of the culling of seal because of their
fur.
The Netherlands is
not the first EU-country to ban this seal product trade. Belgium
was first and Germany is taking steps towards the same ban.
Greenland has complained to the European Commission against the
Belgian ban that would violate free trade.
Newspaper TROUW
BAN ON SEAL PRODUCT
TRADE
(Novum)
-
The trade in seal
products in The Netherlands will be banned not later than
September. It concerns the products of harp seals, hooded seals and
Cape fur seals. This was announced by Minister of Agriculture Gerda
Verburg on Wednesday to the 2nd chamber of parliament. It was
announced earlier that a ban by July was not
feasible.
In other Eurpean
countries like Belgium and Italy have a ban. In the whole EU there
is a ban on import of furs and products of seals under the age of
twelve days. Now this includes older seals as
well.
Amongst others this
ban concerns skins, furs and oil
From: Seal Alert-SA
Date: April 17, 2007
Seals
and Filming
Dear All Cape
Fur Seal Supporters,
Humblest apologies for being so quiet on
my updates. The underwater video camera arrived safely (and thank
you to those of you who helped fund its purchase). However on
loading the software, a nightmare started of crashing systems and
PC. It seems I have too many camera software running on one PC, as
such I was unable to effectively send out
updates.
Filming
with the German film crew for Wildlife Nannies went well, and it
seems they could just not get enough footage of the babies, and
kept returning for more and more.
The workload at the centre is
massive. Here is an idea of my time constraints. I leave home 7am,
feeding and nursing the babies, cleaning and then disentangling and
helping the wild seals on the raft, takes me to 10am. Between 10am
and 12am (for now, and which time soon will be taken up with daily
coastal seal rescue patrols), I have time to build, respray, fit,
purchase parts/equipment and load and pack 20, 5kg boxes of bait.
From 12am, for the next two hours, is consumed preparing and making
the babies feed for the next 24-hours (involving 10 litres of
mineral water and descaling 120 fish). At 2pm its the babies second
feed for the day, and attending to the other seals on the rafts,
takes me to 4pm. Between 4pm and 7pm, I can continue whatever work
needs to be done. At 7pm, its back at the centre for the babies
night feed which lasts until 10pm. Then home for
supper.
We
are now at day 150, the longest a group of baby Cape fur seals,
have ever, in the history of human and Cape fur seal interactions,
worldwide been successfully rehabbed. I am so proud of Alpha, Omega
and JT, they are teaching me much. Which will continue, until self
weaning around day 365, a full year. No evenings off, no weekends,
no holidays, no break - no occasional night out with the wife - and
I am loving every minute of it. This is the 5th year in a row of
doing so. A wild baby seal (which appeared motherless on the nearby
Hout Bay awash rock seal colony). (Note resprayed jetski in
background, more on this later....)
According to our Fisheries Minister, commercial fishing will
collapse and wild fish will be gone by 2048 .... but Cape fur seals
are thriving (go figure). He also claims only two species Yellow
Tail and Snoek are managed well and exploited optimally, the rest
are threatened or collapsed. (What exactly does he mean?, is he
saying we are overfishing these two so well that soon they will
collapse - can you believe this fishery talk. Under the
Constitution all fishing is supposed to be sustainable????. A dear
old friend named "Bull", going blind and starving to
death, had the unfortunate luck of becoming entangled in no
less than 5 Yellow Tail loops discarded with the attractive tails
still attached. It appears, every Yellow Tail and Tuna season,
ropes looped around the tails are cut off when frozen and
discarded, tens of thousands of loops and tails are involved -
entangling many unfortunate victims (in this well managed optimally
exploited fishing industry). I freed him.
Mumkin has
chosen to stay, but goes to sea for days. In the pic above, he has
just returned from a 3 day and night outing, and can hardly keep
his eyes open. Off to the seal centre for his
feed.
Another
unfortunate victim of our fisheries, in reality, I have almost
freed a seal a day, including the one above. This morning alone,
six seals came in needing help.
In the coming weeks, I plan to send you
various pics taken by the various cameras, the head cam, underwater
cam, pole cam etc. Above and below you will experience their world,
and I will reveal what I have been doing to the jetski, catamaran,
centre, rafts etc.
To those of you who have sent Seal
Alert-SA some funds, thank you kindly its desperately needed. On
this subject, I incur annually as operational costs over 250 000
rand (USD 35 000) in direct rescue/rehab costs. Another 100
000 rand (USD 14 000) is going into the revamp, and another 200 000
(USD 28 000) is required to complete the outside part of the centre
and disentanglement/large seal rehab area. Then funding is needed
to get seals back on islands, the Namibian cull etc, etc.
Take at second look at my work-load, and
you will see my only link with the outside world is you. There is
just no time spare to find potential supporters. So if you can
please help, keep the ball rolling, please do. If I can raise
sufficient funding towards completing the centre to a "tourist
viewing facility", Nelda and I could generate sufficient funds by
charging a viewing fee, and become self-sufficient. So I ask you,
please dig deep for one last time, and I will do the best with what
is received, as I want to complete building work before winter
rains and the mass of pups start stranding, and baby pupping season
beginning again.
On this subject, I look around at what we
together have achieved, and the equipment acquired, and it makes me
really proud, when remembering how each one of you contributed in
your own special way. Lets make this final push a reality, for I
guarantee great things will come from it.
For the Seals
Francois Hugo Seal Alert-SA
* . *
From: Seal
Alert-SA
Date: March 14, 2007
Huge Thank You
to All who Helped with
Acquiring Video Camera for the Seals
Dear All Cape Fur
Seal Supporters,
Within 24 hours, we now have
sufficient funds to acquire the video camera, Earle has just
informed me. Our good friend Eddy, besides a donation has
allowed us to make use of his courier service, so I should
have the camera, next week. So a huge thank you to all that
made this possible, Paul Watson kindly wrote that he too will be in
Canada, and will make up any shortfall we
have.
After a number of years of working on this open jetty in all
weather conditions, I have experienced the most terrible abuse of
seals that have come to Seal Alert-SA needing help. Weak pups
falling in concrete holes and drowning, poachers hitting seals (to
chase them away so that they can poach crayfish in the rocks)with
bottles or physically hitting them with sticks or stabbing them. My
constant ever changing group of 25 - 50 seals (or 1000 a year),
undergo constant harassment. Even from well meaning members of the
public. To put it mildly, it has been a nightmare for both me
and the seals.
As the centre,is nearing completion, in sense of the
babies and the two pools - in so far as we have a nice working
environment. With Mezzanine level and office space, and dive
lockers, additional roller-shutter doors still to be addressed. My
next priority, once the jetski is complete and both are serviced.
To focus on the Catamaran's revamp (this will be the babies next
floating home by May/June). If funds are sufficient, my next
priority is to address the evils mentioned above created by the
open jetty. In the pic on the right above, this lower pier, will be
my next focus. The half broken wall will be removed, above on the
higher pier, I would like to construct, a 2 metre high solid
brick/concrete wall to run down its length. This will give the
seals the protection they need when I am not there or away on
rescues. I plan to level the floor with a slight incline, and put
an access ramp from the centre onto this pier, and at the far end,
a ramp into the sea, for the seals to climb up on. Further plans
involved two outside rehab pools and a disentanglement area, as
well as a launching/retrieving system/pulley for the boats.
Hopefully, this is achieved by May/June. Then,
and only then, will I have the peace of mind to leave this
facility, knowing they (the seals) are safe, and go out into the
wild daily with the babies and rescues.
This is when the filming will truly take place,
from May onwards. We plan to post regular segments onto the
internet, for you all to download and view, and those with dial-up,
we will post DVD's. I will have a camera mounted on my head at all
times, and with the latest camera shoots taken of underwater and on
the seal colonies, and during rescues. You will experience, what it
is like to ride with three baby seals on a jetski out at sea, and
see how vulnerable they are in the wild, and how they seek support
from each other and me. You will experience what it is truly like
to swim with seals above and below the water, and how they hold on.
Feel what it is like swimming through white shark patrolled waters,
before crawling in amongst a group of wild seals to free an
entangled one or rescue one. Feel what it is like to be confronted
by a 300kg bull lying down face to face. How they behave and
react, and how accepting they are if done right. You will
experience seals coming ashore on previously banned islands, and
how nervous they are.
You will feel the joy, and see it in their eyes, when
a seal is helped at sea. You will experience an amazing visual
display of phosphorus in the water at night, and how
an amazing blue light is generated, that illuminates the seals
every swim motion. Experience the babies joining a wild colony, and
how out of thousands of look-alike seals, the babies respond to
their call. You will experience how a wild, dying, terrified seals
responds to just gentle touch. This is only the start.
So although we are moving slowly, we are moving
forward - please be patient. Everything has to do with lack of
funds, so when we get, we move forward.
Exciting times, lay ahead. For all you all have done,
thank you.
For the Seals
Francois Hugo Seal Alert-SA
From: SEAL ALERT-SA
Date: March 4, 2007
Thank You for
the Birthday Thoughts
Dear All Cape Fur Seal
Supporters,
Tomorrow is my Birthday, and I turn
44. Thank you all for the birthday messages, you are all most kind
and thoughtful, and its very appreciated. Doing what I do somewhat
isolates me from my fellow human beings, and as such, things like
birthday, Christmas, Easter, Holidays and New Year, become just
another day in the seal world. It seems Mumkin has really gotten
into your hearts from the messages received from my last email, (He
was informed), and it is so pleasing that a species that was seen
as 'vermin', with phrases, like 'the only good seal - is a dead
seal', has as such been transformed - for this, on their behalf my
deepest thanks.
Mumkin refuses to leave. Our previous
rehabbed seals returned to the wild and self-survival by
mid-January. Mumkin although becoming less dependent on
tube-feeding, clearly has no immediate plans to leave the
area.
In the pic above, Alpha after watching Mumkin
intently, attempts to mimic Mumkin suckling his flipper. Only
problem is, Alpha cant get it right to reach the end of his
flipper, instead he turns his flipper inside out or tries to reach
the end extending it further away. Mumkin introducing himself to
Eddy.
Sadly Eddy, after 13 days of rehad died.
Initially she recovered well, but then instinct kidded in when she
felt better, and this drove her to go home. She would never have
survived, and with almost certainty, her mom was no longer around
or alive, but instinct is something - a wonder of nature, we have
yet to understand. She tried everything to find a way out of the
centre, never giving up hope of being re-united with her mom -
and this sadly, was her undoing, with no "bond", stress builds, and
finally she weakens and dies. No medication, food or love, can
change this.
We are now at day 107 into this group baby seal rehab. Last year
the group reached day 114, before Max left and Myrna weakened and
died. While I am extremely hopefully, there are similar signs (like
last year), that the non-bonding issue is increasing becoming an
issue. I therefore fear for Alpha and JT. It progresses very
slowly, building and building, until the point of no-bond, followed
by leaving or death. JT is not suckling on my arm as hard, and the
other day, she stayed away after tubing, treating me as some kind
of stranger. Alpha, likewise refuses to be handled, and after
tearing my arm to almost shreds during each feed, has forced me to
wear gloves.
Smell and scent, is everything to them. I
recently transferred them into the 2nd pool, and the terror of the
'new smells', made them all impossible to handle for the first 24
hours. I had to leave an item of clothing with my scent, before
things calmed down. Alpha and JT will only suckle my right arm, and
it must be tongue on my flesh. Omega on my left arm, neck or
face.
Tonite, JT vomited after her fed, which is another possible sign,
that things are deteriorating. Hopefully the deep bonds the three
share between them, will help to carry them through. Fortunately or
unfortunately, Omega is not as strongly bonded, as previous pups,
and so allows and tolerates the others suckling on me, to a certain
extent, provide they only use my right arm.
The pups love the warmth of the infra-red light and Omega is
getting to grips with the jetski and where he should sit, when we
journey out to sea.How I will handle all three, out at sea, remains
to be seen.
In the coming months my attention is focused on these pups, and
whilst this is going on, getting all my equipment, rafts, boats,
jetski's in perfect working order. I am presently respraying the
three-seater jetski (as without corporate colours/logo, riding in a
marine protected area off Hout Bay, to which jetski's are banned,
creates endless problems of arrest), even though I have applied for
an exemption, and have still not received a reply. Next will
be a revamp of the Catamaran (for the pups floating stage 2 rehab)
and then the two rafts. Dependent upon what funds are received in
the coming months, I will progress the centre accordingly, but for
the moment we have a nice working set-up.
Besides the pups and equipment, my next focus is
to investigate physically the islands and find ways of getting
seals back on them (by hook or by crook). Durban Aquarium called,
and it appears they are having no success rehabbing pups or babies,
and have asked to see me on the 20th - for advice (more on this
development later). Later this week, we should receive the minutes
of our meeting with head of MCM, Dr Mayekiso, which I will forward
you a copy.
My Birthday gift to you. In the coming months,
my wife Nelda, (who will do the editing), and I will make a short
DVD film on what it is truly like to do what I do. Going out to sea
in storm conditions, swimming through shark waters to reach seal
colonies, crawling amongst big bulls to reach a dying seal,
seal-less islands, disentangling and much, much more - and of
course, the pups integration into the wild. I will be wearing a
head-cam, and so the shots should be exciting and very real. I will
send you each a copy.
For years, I felt like a lone voice shouting for
the seals, but lately - things have changed. It is now my turn for
others to shout at me, "Hi Francois. I loved your positive e-mail.
And yes I think now you are not a lonely voice anymore. It is March
already, nearly and four months to go before the seal
slaughter begins. Let us not keep this quiet till the last minute,
but rather do a build up before the count down so that awareness is
already created before the first blow. Maybe this time we can get
Carte Blanch in. Derek Watts was here for a children's trust golf
day - I asked him "why not the seals." But I am sure we can
persuade them. I know a bit more, and have seen the factory and
layout now - so I come prepared. Everything has quietened down here
along the coast. No dead seals, and Cape Cross is is busy but not
packed.Keep smiling. Donna and Savannah
Hold thumbs for the babies, and thanks for all
the messages. Rest assured all, with your help, I am working on a
million ways to help these seals.
PS - Thanks to you, Germany and Netherlands has banned Cape fur
Seals. www.infurmation.com/press_detail.php?id=405.
South Africa, is the biggest importer, this we are
addressing.
For the Seals
Francois Hugo Seal Alert-SA