Canada begins controversial seal cull

Sealers took to the thawing ice floes off the Atlantic Ocean today, the first day of Canada’s contentious seal hunt, which animal rights activist claim is barbaric and not economically worth the bad publicity.

The fishermen in the isolated island communities of Quebec and Newfoundland say the world’s largest seal hunt supplements their meagre winter incomes, particularly since cod stocks have dwindled dramatically since the mid 1990s.

The hunt brought in 16.5 million Canadian dollars in revenue last year, after some 325,000 seals were slaughtered. Fishermen are able to sell their pelts, mostly for the fashion industry in Norway, Russia and China, as well as their blubber for oil.

The federal government maintains Canada’s seal population is healthy and abundant, with the population of nearly six million in the Arctic north and maritime provinces.

As the sealers got into position before dawn, small ice-jumper planes chartered by animal conservationists flew above to observe and report any abuses. The sealers must quickly kill the seals with a pick or bullet to the brain. The pups, which are typically two to three weeks old, must have shed their white downy fur before being killed.

Animal rights activists, particularly the Humane Society of the US and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, claim the fishermen often skin the seals alive or leave some pups to die if they are not immediately knocked unconscious.

The unseasonably mild temperatures in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has made the ice thin and many of the harp seal pups appear to have drowned.

Veteran animal-rights activist John Grandy, on board a plane chartered by the Humane Society, said there were much fewer pups on the ice this year.

“That tels us many have died, they fell through before they could swim,” Grandy said.

Grandy counted thirty sealer boats vying for position during his two hour aerial survey, less than half the number spotted last year, when they would hunt in packs.

Roger Simon, spokesman for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, disputed concerns about a high natural seal mortality this year.

“The ice was actually fairly good for the critical period of pupping and nursing,” Simon told The Canadian Press. “There will always be some mortality and some drowning. There doesn’t seem to be any concern this year because we haven’t found dead pups floating and beached.”

Simon added that while the ice is quickly vanishing in the southern Gulf, there is plenty in the northern Gulf.

Registered sealers will be allowed to kill up to 325,000 pups this year. Aboriginal and Inuit hunters began the commercial kill in November in Canada’s frozen Arctic waters; the spring leg will move off the coast of Newfoundland in April.

“The few seal pups we’ve seen cling to the scattered, tiny pans of ice that remain across the ocean,” the Humane Society said in a statement. “Now, the few surviving baby seals we’ve watched for the last several days are being killed as Canada’s gruesome seal hunt begins again.”

The Humane Society has had high-profile allies in celebrities such as Paul McCartney and his wife, Heather Mills McCartney, who travelled to the Gulf of Lawrence two weeks ago to pose with the newborn pups and plead with Canada to end the slaughter. French film legend Brigitte Bardot held a news conference in Ottawa earlier this week