Dear All Cape Fur Seal
Supporters,
Cape Fur Seals in
'Good-Hands', But Whose Hands ?
From: sasealion@wam.co.za
Date: June 6, 2008
BB, Derrick, Tom, JM, JT,Lucky, Robbie
and Tom
The
Babies - Many people
ask how I can tell the seals part from each other, I tell them its
easy, its like knowing your own children. See for yourself, each
very different and each with a distinctive character and
personality. Welcome to our 8 babies, each born in December, almost
all from a different seal colony, each with a terribly sad story
and now six months of age, except JT who is a year older. You are
looking at 8 seal faces who are about to make history, the first
group of 8 baby Cape fur seals to ever be rehabilitated
successfully together as a group. I am somewhat proud of this
achievement, as each is very happy, rather plump and just adorable.
3 females and 5 males, enough even to re-start their own new seal
colony. These are the only babies to have survived this year's
cull, and were rescued from amongst thousands of their already
dead siblings.
Although Lucky our latest is not
doing so well, rejecting feed and medication at times, but is
slowly improving, I have high hopes she will recover fully, much of
her problems stem from her initial poor body condition and the
strain it placed on her immune system.
By the time of their ability to self
survive in the wild, within the next six months, each will have
cost me over R10 000 or 800 euros each. One Supporter has adopted
Lucky and is paying for her upkeep, and two others JM (who is
blind) and Derrick, have been named after loyal supporters. If you
would like to financially contribute or help me in their upkeep,
please feel free to.
Supporters -
The French people have been
amazing, I have even getting responses from French citizens on the
islands of Reunion, French Pacific Polynesia and Tahiti, and still
I receive emails and deposits or funding is coming into my
bank and by postal address. My deepest thanks.
The Seal Centre
- Unfortunately
thieves stole electrical cabling powering the centre, luckily on
the outside of the building and did not gain access inside the
centre this time, but it caused me to be without power, running on
generators and a few thousand rand to replace the electrical
cables. I am so excited, since acquiring this four walled
store-room turned into a seal centre, a year and half ago, as an
emergency measure. Seals have been coming in and out in the course
of my rescues. Last year, at one stage I had 31 seals undergoing
treatment. What this means is I cannot do any repair work or major
upkeep, as it will frighten these wild seals inside. Saving them
takes first priority. The biggest problem, is that although the sea
is directly below me, and my rehab rafts are nearby, the seals in
the centre are cut-off from free access to the sea. But, soon this
is about to change. I have acquired a spiral steel staircase, which
we are installing outside the centre, around this staircase which
drops three metres to the water, above which I will construct a
seal haul-out platform, with walls surrounding, and finally break
down a portion of the wall of the centre, for the seals to now
access the freedom of the open sea, whenever they are ready. It is
envisaged, that the seals under rehab, can now come and go freely,
going out to swim in the open ocean, and return for their care and
feed or safety - as nature intended. This will reduce their stress
and feelings of confinement. The costs are high, so if you can
help, with some funding, again please feel free to do so towards
construction costs.
Commercial Fishermen
Shooting Seals - Report Back. Thank you for all your
letters of outrage. The only response to date, has been the
Minister's special advisor complaining that seal supporters are
jamming his inbox, and that I should not have given it out publicly
- like that really is my worry or concern, address the problem is
my point, in otherwords do your job, advisor. For the first time
this exposure is being driven by a fishermen, who witnessed first
hand other fishermen's brutality and murder towards seals. On
the funny side, government officials tasked with protecting our
seals, attempted to claim that "BillFish" was a hoax by me. The
media has already reported on the seal shooting, see article
www.news24.com/Regional_Papers/Components.html,
with more newspaper articles to follow, and a local prime time
television station is looking into doing a story for national TV.
The really pathetic thing on the part of government is their
in-activity to do anything. Hout Bay the area where this happened,
has recently been declared a Marine Protected Area (MPA), as per
the World Summit in 2004, in which at least 20% of the coastline
should be protected. Within this MPA, is an even more protected
area, called a Marine Sanctuary, where no fishing is supposed to be
allowed. But, the Minister has given these fishermen a waiver to
fish in the sanctuary, who then kill and shoot seals living on the
small seal colony in the sanctuary. So small its seal population
has never been surveyed.
The Catamaran Boat
Project - The boat
is still for sale, but if sold, a similar boat would cost 80 000
euros. Funding coming in has slowed, and at last check, we have
about 20% of the purchase price. So it seems it will be many months
before such a purchase, if at all could be possibly considered.
Alan Cooper of cetaceadefenceuk has pledged USD $1000 and
challenges others to match or better this amount. The problem
is as well, as time increases, my existing costs continue, I have
on-going seal rescue costs, equipment replacement costs and centre
needing construction work. I hope therefore it is to everyone's
satisfaction, if the necessary funds for catamaran are not
forthcoming, that I utilize the funds for the seals were most
needed. But, I will try to hold out as best I can, depending on
seal rescues etc.
Increasing Awareness
- As you all know my
wife Nelda, helps with funding from our own business manufacturing
mini-global atlas maps and seal fake-fur statues, and then selling
these to tourists undertaking boat-rides to the seal colony
off Hout Bay. In an attempt to further increase the awareness
amongst international tourists, I have acquired a small second-hand
Fiat Uno Panel-Van, which we plan to cover in seal
pictures/posters, and have a DVD/Video playing images of seals as
well. This moving bill-board seal-van will it is hoped educate and
inform over 300 000 tourists visiting Hout Bay, many of whom go on
to visit Namibia.
Many supporters have asked if
they can purchase our Mini Maps, unfortunately the costs of sending
these items are high, as they are quite heavy in weight - hence why
they are instead sold directly to visiting tourists. In addition,
to deal with orders, packaging, transport and exporting, just
increases my workload, and takes me away from the seals needing
help. So the answer is negative, at this stage.
The Namibian Baby
Seal Cull and Bull Shooting For Their Penises Commercially -
As you can see from above
seal pics, the seal pups are undergoing their first moult, changing
their fur from jet back to olive grey. This is their waterproof
undercoat coming through, which means they are reaching the age of
slowly becoming sea-creatures, able to withstand the cold ocean.
Although still suckling babies, will now start to learn hunting and
foraging over the next 6 months, to gain the ability to hunt for
themselves and self survive on their own. Sadly less than a month
from now, sealers will separate these pups from their mothers and
round-up tens of thousands, and attempt to club 85 000 pups for
their annual sealing quota.
During and after my meeting with the
Namibian Prime Minister last year, Ministry of Fisheries was
claiming the seal population had increased to its largest ever and
was therefore awarded their highest pup quota. The sealing quota
has risen 700% more than when Namibia become independent in 1990.
When I flew over the largest colony, 22 days into the 139 day
sealing season (which lies along the oldest desert in the world,
1600km from my seal centre in Hout Bay), we found not a single seal
or pup left alive in the seal colony, which the Ministry claimed
numbered 300 000 seals before sealing started, just a few days
ealier. In otherwords it was completely exterminated by Namibian
seal clubbers.
I have written to the Namibian
Fisheries Ministry, requesting the population survey results for
December 2007 and the sealing quota figures, whilst advising him
that I intend to do my own aerial population survey of all the
colonies, before sealing starts and during the seal clubbing, this
was his reply, "Dear Hugo,
Did you
manage to have permission from relevant authorities to execute the
survey as envisaged? Or don’t you need one? You will get the
harvest levels once cleared by Advisory Council and Minister as
this will fall into public information then". So, Namibia is clearly
going ahead with its seal cull. Clearly this also makes them very
nervous, as my evidence would show these seal colonies are
declining or in a very poor state, no doubt they will try to block
my aerial survey, as it is clear that he does not want to give out
the results of the population survey in December 2007, which can
only mean they are very poor and the clubbing quota too
high.
The last
aerial survey I did, was cut short to save costs, but a proper
survey will cost over R50 000 to hire plane and fuel, and if two
surveys are done as envisaged, over R100 000 or 8 000 euros is
needed to be raised for this trip. So again if you want to help
stop the clubbing, this evidence is vital, and far more effective
than any protest campaign, but it costs money, once
again..
EU
Commission On Seal Import Ban - It is still hoped
Commissioner Dimas of the EU, finalizes the EU position on Seal
Imports before Namibia starts its clubbing of 85 000 baby seals on
July 1, as this might pressure Namibia to end sealing. Although
they are clearly ignoring the European Food Safety Scientific
review which clearly states Namibia's killing of seals is inhumane
and cruel. What would be really sad, if the EU does ban seal
imports weeks after sealing has started, and these killed pups
would then be killed for nothing, as Namibia exports all baby seal
skins to EU via Turkey.
Petitions
- Firstly, thank you
all for signing the online petitions. I have decided to
combine all my current petitions, under one new petition, titled,
"Declaration For The Protection Of Cape Fur Seals in Southern
Africa", this will become my blue-print for all future seal
protection work, and as such I ask each and everyone of you to go
to www.petitiononline.com/DPCFS/petition.html ,
and re-sign the petition, as this document is vital to show
governments the support for the seals, now and in the future. The
more signature, the more powerful we become. With lots of
signatures, I can wave this in Government's face all the time, so
please, sign.
The cause
of this problem is that I neither have the time nor expertise to
manage my own website, but to avoid future problems are looking
into starting my own website. This will take time, so for now, we
will just have to rely upon the updates I send to each of you. The
NEW website is in the planning stage, and I am considering
changing the name from Seal Alert-SA to Seal-Man SA, as I feel it
reflects more correctly the work I do. Below is an idea of what the
new website might look like. Please just give me time to set it up,
and when ready I will announce it.
Looking
Ahead - I judge my Seal-Man
effort towards protecting and saving seals by the commitment I can
make. I aim for 100%. However to do up to 1000 seal rescues per
year, treat them, feed them, keep equipment operating, fuel costs,
running my own seal centre privately etc, plus the
investigations, research, sea patrols, aerial surveys and meetings,
all cost money. To be fully maximized, and to cover all costs (my
own expenses or needs, I receive via my own business run by my
wife), so all funds raised go directly to the seals, I would
need approximately R600 000 or 50 000 euros, a year in
funding. This is besides equipment purchases like the catamaran
boat. The more funds coming in the more effective I can be in
saving and protecting this species. I have yet to even reach 50%
effectiveness.
As soon as
the baby seal clubbing starts in Namibia, 1600 km away, seal pups
will be forced to separate from nursing cow, and will start to flee
the killing fields, and end up washing ashore in South Africa, very
weak and starving and needing rescue. Tens of thousands are
involved. I therefore have a window until September to get
everything ready to try and save some of these seals. It is clear
to me, that keeping wild seals in captivity, even for seal rescue,
is not a working solution, as rehab takes months and it alters wild
seal natural behaviour too negatively. Seals must be free at all
times. Soon after this, thousands of baby seals wash off rocks all
along the coastline off South Africa, which then takes me into
another year of constant rescue and rehab. On the one hand you need
to rescue and save them, but on the other, they also need the
freedom to learn to hunt in the wild to survive, hence the need for
the ocean going catamaran.
Hence why I appeal once again, for you to come forward
and help fund with the catamaran boat purchase. What displaced
seal pups need after being chased from their natal seal colony, is
another safe colony to recover (the catamaran boat). They are
intelligent enough to accept this new surroundings, and accept feed
and medication, whilst they learn the ability to hunt in their
new surroundings. Its the only way to effectively rescue and treat
them and to get them self surviving properly in the wild again.
Whilst this concept is a world first, it is after over 5000 seal
rescues the most effective way to treat them, and which in part I
have partially perfected as well.
Mumkin the
seal pup, now in his third year, is a shinning example of how
effective this catamaran boat can be for all seal
rescues.
Many
supporters make light work. Organizations like Seashepherd have 50
000 members of $3 million in funding, WWF has 5 million, but
if we can just get 100 supporters to contribute 50 euros a month,
monthly - I would reach as a single-individual 100% effectiveness.
My past record, speaks for itself.
Please bear
in mind that there is no other organization protecting or saving
this species of seal. With whatever funds I receive I am trying to
protect and stop illegal acts on over a million seals spread over
three countries, whilst trying to save as many seal lives as
physically possible for one individual to do, if 100 supporters
came forward monthly, in all probability I would not need to make
constant appeals for funding, and instead could just focus on
getting on with the job.
So
if its possible, take up the challenge, and help me help these
seals. I myself, put in a few hundred euros each month to help with
my seal rescue and protection costs each month.
Much of
these seals suffering stems from the fact that they have been
ignored for far too long.
Together we
can save a species found nowhere else on earth. My banking details
below.
For the
Seals
Francois Hugo Seal
Alert-SA
http://www.youtube.com/user/sealmancam
Seal
Alert-SA Postal Address. SEAL ALERT-SA, BOX 221, POSTNET, HOUT BAY,
7872, SOUTH AFRICA
HEREWITH IS FURTHER DETAILS FOR BANK TRANSFERS:
ZAR
is South AfricanRand
More
information to be able to send the money via
internet:
SEAL
ALERT-SA ACC : 911 2201 321
BRANCH CODE : 632 005
SWIFT CODE
: ABSAZAJJ
BANK : ABSA
SA
NAT.CLEARING CODE
FOR
EUROPE :
IBAN
: 911 2201 321
ACCOUNT
: 911 2201 321
BIC :
ABSAZAJJXXX
BIC:
(SWIFT-CODE) ABSAZAJJ
Bank name : ABSA
Address : DELPHI ARCH OFFICE
PARK, RAATS DRIVE, TABLE VIEW
City/code : TABLE VIEW, 7439
Country
: South Africa