Seal hunt off to slow start
(apr. 15, 2008)
the western star

The seal hunt is off to a slow start on both fronts this year as few sealers take part in the hunt.

But the politics around it is moving as fast as ever as local politicians and anti-sealing protesters hurl names at people on both ends of the sealing debate.

Larry Yetman, a resource management specialist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), said on Monday that only about 38 per cent of the total seal quota for longliners has been taken on the front since Saturday - about 43,000 seals. Meanwhile, small boats on the front have only taken 17 per cent of their quota, about 12,000 seals. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the hunt started Friday, the province's sealers have taken about 44 per cent of their quota, or about 23,000 seals.

The slow start is due to many sealers choosing not to hunt this year, said Yetman. Sealers are staying onshore mainly due to low pelt prices and high fuel costs.

"On the front last year we had 245 vessels (longliners) reporting on a daily basis, compared to 60 or 70 this year," Yetman said.

Between 45 and 55 vessels under 35 feet in length taking part on the front, he said - about a tenth of last year's total.

"Last year, for the smaller vessels on the front, we had 445," he said.

In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 115 vessels from the province were taking part, he said.

This year's hunt has also resulted in fewer calls to the coast guard. As of Monday morning, it had responded to 11 incidences related to the seal hunt, both in the gulf and on the front, said Brian Stone, coast guard superintendent of search and rescue for the Maritimes.

However, in the afternoon, a Department of National Defence helicopter based out of Gander had to rescue five sealers after their vessel caught fire about 37 km east of Catalina. No one was injured.

Meanwhile, on the political front, people on both sides of the sealing debate were negatively labelling others following a seizure of an anti-sealing ship.

The Farley Mowat, a ship owned by anti-sealing organization Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, was seized and two of the ship's officers arrested by Canadian officials Saturday. DFO has said the vessel was boarded in relation to events on March 30, when the Farley Mowat allegedly came too close to sealers and forced two collisions with a Canadian Coast Guard ship off Cape Breton.

On Monday, Sea Shepherd founding president Paul Watson said he paid $10,000 bail for the two officers being held in Cape Breton entirely with two-dollar coins.

Watson said he did it because he considers the actions by Canadian authorities piracy, and pirates like to be paid in coins.

But in Newfoundland, Premier Danny Williams was the one attaching a moniker to Watson.

"I consider him to be a terrorist," said Williams. "That (the arrests and seizure) finally happened is a good thing, because Paul Watson is certainly not welcome in our country and certainly not in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador."

In the House of Assembly on Monday, Fisheries Minister Tom Rideout applauded the actions of the federal government, while pressing them to work against a proposed European Union ban on seal products. He asked it to take action against members of the EU that ban the products on the grounds that such a ban violates World Trade organization obligations.