The Seizure of the Farley Mowat
(apr. 14, 2008)
globe and mail

The boarding and seizure of the environmental vessel the Farley Mowat and the arrest of her captain and first officer is not only a grossly disproportionate response to the efforts of opponents to document the seal hunt, but it is itself an overtly political act.

At a news conference about the seizure, Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn condemned the protesters as "a bunch of money-sucking manipulators." He mocked Paul Watson, the head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, for "quarterbacking from his nice, posh hotel room in New York somewhere." Earlier, he labelled Mr. Watson "gutless." This was clearly no routine enforcement of marine mammal regulations under the Fisheries Act.

Mr. Watson said the seizure of his organization's vessel by an RCMP tactical squad operating from two Canadian Coast Guard vessels was in response to graphic footage the crew of the Farley Mowat had obtained of seals being slaughtered. He said the images would harm Canada's reputation as the European Union considers a ban of seal products.

That's one way to look at it. Another is that it is an easy way for a federal government to impress Newfoundlanders and improve its popularity in Atlantic Canada following its battles with Premier
Danny Williams. It is also a way for the Coast Guard, which falls under Mr. Hearn's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to redeem itself with the sealing and fishing community following the tragic sinking of the fishing vessel Acadien II while under tow by a Coast Guard ice breaker.

Four sealers from Quebec were killed in the icy waters when their vessel overturned in that notorious incident two weeks ago. Accounts of the tragedy allege bungling by the Coast Guard crew, followed by callousness in the official response to the tragedy and search for survivors. Mr. Hearn's department was forced to attempt damage control and the minister fell back on his own roots "coming from a small fishing community" to try to calm the anger.

While allegations that the Farley Mowat came dangerously close to a sealer deserve to be taken seriously, some eyewitness accounts suggest the Coast Guard icebreaker Sir William Alexander posed a far greater threat to the well being of sealers.

Mr. Hearn is correct that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is known around the world for causing "all sorts of troubles." Mr. Watson is a renegade in the environmental movement whose
confrontational tactics - for which he was expelled from Greenpeace - have won him some friends, many enemies, and a great deal of publicity. His extremism was evident in his comment that the killing of seals is "a greater tragedy" than the deaths of the four Quebec sealers. The Farley Mowat has bravely confronted Japanese whalers operating in Antarctic waters, defending endangered species that Japan to its shame still hunts, but Mr. Watson's actions to stop the
seal hunt are not justified on conservation grounds. Instead, they focus on a gruesome and marginal hunt targeting plentiful seal populations only to pander to public revulsion, mainly in Europe, over cuddly little seals being bludgeoned. No doubt this aids the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's fund-raising efforts.

Rather than marginalizing Mr. Watson, however, the government has played directly into his hands. Thanks to Mr. Hearn's political machinations, Mr. Watson just got more free publicity than he likely ever dreamed of.