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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