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N.S. minister's response to proposed EU seal product ban: kill more seals |
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Written by Keith Doucette, THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Thursday, 24 July 2008 |
A seal hunter clubs a harp seal on a ice floe in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in this April 2, 2005 file photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
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HALIFAX - Nova Scotia's fisheries minister called for an expanded annual seal hunt Thursday, thumbing his nose at a proposed move by the European Union to ban the import of seal products amid growing complaints from overseas that the hunt is inhumane.
Ron Chisholm said he believes the hunting methods used by Canadian hunters are humane and he encouraged Ottawa to press the European Parliament to reject the proposed ban.
Under legislation introduced Wednesday, the EU's 27-member states would ban seal products from countries where hunting practices are deemed cruel - though the proposal does not offer a definition of what constitutes inhumane treatment.
Nova Scotia does not have a big stake in the annual slaughter.
The province has a yearly quota of 12,000 grey seals, but hunters have rarely taken more than a few hundred annually.
The bulk of the hunting takes place off the north coast of Newfoundland, where about 200,000 harp seals were taken last year.
Still, Chisholm said Nova Scotian fishermen should be allowed to kill more seals because the grey seal population is growing too fast and they are eating too many fish.
"I know the fishermen feel that a quota of around 20,000 or 25,000 quota per year would probably level out the seal population over a certain period of time," said Chisholm.
Chisholm said the grey seal population had exploded in recent years, and he'd like to see the hunt expanded to areas like Sable Island, where the bulk of the 300,000-strong herd can be found.
Although Chisholm couldn't point to any scientific studies that point to hungry seals as the major cause of the disappearance of groundfish stocks, he said fisherman are convinced seals are the culprits.
"You go to any association...that are fish-related and they will tell you the overpopulation of seals has a lot to do with the recovery of the ground fishery stocks, especially in eastern Nova Scotia."
Last February, Chisholm authorized a special, limited grey seal hunt for Hay Island, a provincially protected wilderness area off Cape Breton.
The province set a quota of 2,500 animals with the blessing of the federal Fisheries Department. But the hunt ended early with about 1,250 grey seals harvested.
Nonetheless, the limited hunt drew the ire of animal welfare groups.
Rebecca Aldworth, a spokeswoman for the Humane Society of the United States, said Chisholm's logic is meant to mislead the public into thinking the grey seal herd is too big.
She said that as recent as 1949, grey seals had been considered extinct in Atlantic Canada due to commercial overhunting.
"This is a population that has been in a recovery from such a low that people actually thought they were gone," said Aldworth.
Aldworth, who witnessed the spring hunt and called it "one of the most inhumane I've ever seen," said her organization would continue to press for a judicial review of the decision to allow the hunt in a protected area.
"We're still in the research and putting together our case stage, but we hope to get this moving fairly quickly."
She said the fear remains that the province will simply remove Hay Island's protected status to allow the hunt to resume next year.
Meanwhile, an opposition critic said he wanted to see scientific evidence proving that an expanded grey seal hunt is necessary.
"I can tell you from the people I represent, there is strong support for a humane seal harvest," said New Democrat Sterling Belliveau, who pointed out that all three of the province's main parties supported the Hay Island hunt in the legislature.
But Belliveau maintained the economic problems besetting areas such as the one he represents in rural Shelburne County, are more complex.
He said the province must gain more control from Ottawa to counter fisheries management decisions that are "killing our communities."
"Just to isolate and say it's mainly because of the seal population is incorrect, there are other components," he said.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 07 September 2008 )
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