On Jun 12, 2007, at 11:34 AM, Nikki wrote:

Dear All

In light of the above subject line, Seal Alert sent out the following to the Namibian Ministry and Authorities.
Please feel free to send out your own requests and or letters of condemnation.
We have not yet heard what this year's quota is.
Last year the quota went up from the previous 60 000 pups to 85 000 pups - the sealers could in both instances NOT meet the quota as there were not enough seals to kill.

I will be running the campaign against this senseless slaughter and will send out further action alerts in the coming weeks, so watch this space.

If anyone needs anymore information, or have ANY questions, you can either email me, or have a look at our website .
We need to get as much attention for this cull (the second largest in the world - the Canadian is the biggest) as possible, so send this on to absolutely everyone you know.


Always,
Nikki

To: aiyambo@mfmr.gov.na,
nmbako@mfmr.gov.na,
knguvauva@mfmr.gov.na,
pamutenya@mfmr.gov.na,
bamutse@mfmr.gov.na,
samabi@mfmr.gov.na,
auulenga@mfmr.gov.na,
lhaufiku@mfmr.gov.na,
kembumbulu@mfmr.gov.na
CC: wkonjore@met.gov.na,
izemburuka@nbc.com.na,
csitongo@opm.gov.na,
mlindeque@met.gov.na,
wamagulu@met.gov.na,
nghitila@dea.met.gov.na,
u.boois@met.gov.na,
namugongo@africaonline.com.na,
p.lindeque@mweb.com.na,
lmupetami@mweb.com.na,

Dear Sirs and Madams

With the 2007 Namibian Cape Fur Seal cull about to start, Seal Alert and its supporters would like to request an official statement from the Namibian Ministry and Authorities.

In July 2006, just prior to the start of the 2006 cull, the Namibian Ministry of Fisheries stated the seal population was still recovering from the 1994 mass die-off, and was at 27% below pre-1993 levels.
During the 2006 cull, concessionaries often had to stop and bury up to 900 dead seals a day.
The Ministry launched an investigation in to the cause of this mass die-off and found the animals were not dying of disease, but the deaths were caused by starvation.
The Ministry also admitted the seal pups of the Wolf/Atlas Bay colony have been starving so badly that their growth have dropped to less than 10% (from 30g/day to just 2g/day).
It also found that 48% and 51% of the pups were below the surviving threshold of 11kg.
The Ministry’s own researchers concluded that the majority of pups wouldn’t survive beyond post weaning age.

Despite all this and the fact that each year concessionaries are unable to fill these quotas, Namibia keeps increasing the quotas for seals to be killed.
The Cape Fur Seal population has declined a whopping 50% in the last decade.

There is a huge difference between a cull and a harvest.
A harvest is driven by an economic principle, whereas a cull is used as a method of population control. Namibia calls the killing of these animals a cull and supports openly “sustainable use” of the Cape Fur Seal.

This makes little to no sense. If sealers can’t meet their quotas, if environmental factors such as mass starvation, global warming, etc are keeping seal populations in check, and if there is no real viable economic income in this cull, why is it that Namibia is still going ahead with this in 2007?

Seal Alert and its global supporters therefore respectfully request the Namibian Ministry to issue a statement and explanation in regards to the above.

Yours truly,

Miss Nikki Botha
Seal Alert South Africa – Spokesperson