6 April 2007The Independent
The Canadian government has disclosed that thousands fewer seals have been killed this year in the first stage of the country's infamous hunt - a clear indication of how melting sea ice has already led to the deaths of many of the mammals.
Phil Jenkins, a spokesman for Canada's Fisheries Department, said that just 860 seals were killed during the hunt's initial three-day phase. He said such a catch was "very low".
Unusually warm weather has caused thousands of seals to drown this spring, say officials and animal rights campaigners. For the first few weeks of their lives, seal pups are unable to swim and have to remain on the ice to be able to suckle their mothers. This year thousands have died after falling off melting and cracking ice and drowning.
Canadian officials insist the melting ice is not necessarily linked to long-term climate change and that the melting ice occurs as part of a six-year cycle. But news about the impact on the size of the seal population comes as scientists have revealed that, for the third successive year, winter sea ice in the Arctic has failed to fully reform. Experts said the area of ocean covered by ice was lower only in March 2006.
In recent years the spring seal hunt in Canada's Gulf of St Lawrence and further north in Newfoundland has created huge controversy. The Canadian authorities say the hunt provides vital income to many of the region's smaller communities. Campaigners say the hunt is unnecessarily cruel and that the majority of hunters are interested only in the pelt of the seal - discarding the rest of the animal.
The total quota for the three phases of this year's hunt is 270,000 animals - around 65,000 fewer than last year. The quota was reduced as a result of the ice conditions though the government estimates that there are around 5.5 million seals in Canada, up from 1.8 million in the 1970s. "It's a conservation success story. It's too bad that it's drowned out by emotional rhetoric of animal and welfare groups," Mr Jenkins told the Associated Press.
In turn, campaigners have accused Canadian authorities of refusing to grant observer permits. "To us, that says there's something the Canadian government didn't want the public to see," said Rebecca Aldworth, of the Humane Society of the United States. "In this case, I believe it was the image of just a few seal pups clinging to tiny pans of ice and seal hunters still coming with clubs and guns and shooting and killing every last pup they could find."
In recent years the Canadian seal hunt has benefited from growing demand for seal pelts in Norway, Russia and China. The US has banned Canadian seal products since 1972 and the EU banned the white pelts of baby seals in 1983, though it has resisted calls for a total ban on adult seal products.
