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Dear All Cape Fur Seal Supporters,
27 October 2006
Light at the end of the
Long Dark Namibian Seal Cull Tunnel
Daily fleeing of 75% of the Namibian Seal Population from
Namibian Sealers
75% of the Cape fur seal
Namibian Seal population pups on two mainland colonies
Wolf/Atlas Bay (Diamond restricted area) and Cape Cross
(Nature Reserve). Three sealing concessionaires operate on
these two colonies, daily, from July to November. These
mainland colonies did not exist 60 years ago.
As their namesake implies,
these Cape fur seals once bred predominately in the Cape on
islands off South Africa. Where today, 99% of their former
breeding island habitat remains extinct and physically
banned to them, where equally 85% of the islands off
southern Africa occur. Less than 4% of the population still
bred within this area.
European sealers after nearly
causing this species extinction by 1900, succeeded in also
driving them north onto the two mainland sealing
colonies,currently used by sealers today in Namibia. From
July, daily, sealers will cause stampedes pictured above,
as 300 000 seals of all age groups flee their club
welding attackers. Massive disturbances are created, pups
nursing get separated from mothers and seals desperately in
need of rest to regain energy to hunt are continuously
forced to flee, effecting negatively their chances of
natural survival in an already overfished and depleted
marine environment.
As a result new displaced seal colonies
form. Angola has recently become the recipient of the
latest batch of Cape fur seals fleeing from Namibia, where
three big mainland seal colonies have established
themselves. As far back as the 1970s when sealers were
culling in the Cape (South Africa), 10 month old
suckling/nursing baby seals who were tagged, were found
clubbed or drowned in Namibian waters - their escape
effectively meaningless.
Over the years, as sealing activity in
Namibia intensified, more and more reports each year over
this sealing period, would come in, of seals stranding and
dying in mass all along Namibian beaches. Down south in the
Cape, Seal Alert-SA itself gets flooded with calls
reporting seals stranding, mostly in very weak and
starvation type conditions.
For many years its founder Francois Hugo
of Seal Alert-SA was sure that this was just a
'mirror-effect' of what was being reported along the
Namibian coastline. That seals here too were dying from
starvation. Upon further assessment, Seal Alert-SA has now
reached the conclusion that the majority of these seals,
are 'victims' fleeing the Namibian sealing colonies.
It all suddenly starts mid August and
abruptly ends as sealing season draws to a close. The
characterises of these seals are common, intense fear of
humans, not normally encountered with other wild Cape fur
seals, severe malnutrition, dehydration and acute
starvation. Thousands are involved.
The good news, although insignificant in
number, is that Seal Alert-SA in just this past week has
saved seven of this fleeing baby seals. One seal pup is so
tiny and malnutrition, at 11 months looks like a new-born.
Its swim journey of over 1000 km must have taken weeks, but
finally it is safe and in loving caring hands.
So whilst Namibian claims its sealing industry
is humane and its sealing quotas scientifically
sustainable, even though its the last nursing baby seal
culling nation on earth, and new fleeing seal colonies
continue to form, even in other northern countries, at
least somewhere out there, there is a little hope for the
lucky few that find the hands of Seal Alert-SA or safe
non-sealing African countries.
Perhaps, these lucky seven 2006 recruits
cannot re-build a population completely wiped out by
sealers and starvation, which has seen all their young
siblings die, but, at least its a start.
For the Seals
Francois Hugo Seal Alert-SA