The brutal ritual of the Canadian seal hunt recurred this spring as the Western harp and hooded seals made their annual migration from the Arctic to ice floes on the northeast Atlantic seaboard. Once fueled by a demand for pelts and oil, a new Far East market for seal penis aphrodisiacs have driven the Canadian government to invest more than ever in the seal slaughter.
This year the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) sanctioned the killing of 285,000 seals, the highest kill quota since they were first established in the early 1970s. But even this astounding figure doesn't represent the true number of seals killed. Sealers only recover about one out of every three they attack. It is estimated that this year's true mortality rate will exceed more than half a million seals.
Ice conditions this year, the worst on record in over a century, have raised natural pup mortality. Most years, the ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence form a floating nursery. If the ice is too thin or the floes too small, the seals give birth in the water and the pups drown. They are often the lucky ones. The ice shortage has caused seals to crawl onto the beaches of Prince Edward Island, where the locals are extraordinarily brutal.
Anonymous locals on the island, who fear retaliation, report individuals cutting off the flippers of several pups, rolling them over with their feet, kicking them and leaving them to bleed to death. The flippers were later seen hanging like trophies from pickup trucks. There have been numerous reports of seals skinned alive, penises tied to car radio antennas and an incident in which an adult seal, half skinned and still alive, was dragged behind a truck while the four blood-covered occupants in the cab yelled out the windows. The DFO continues to deny knowledge of these violations, and authorities routinely release perpetrators for lack of evidence, despite witnesses' statements.
But the poor ice conditions produced one positive effect: There was only one ice floe of any size and consistency in the gulf, making it less complicated to defend the seals.
On March 15, the Sea Shepherd III became the first conservation vessel since 1983 to enter the Canadian Maritimes during Canada's annual harp seal hunt. (The last ship to do so in '83 was the Sea Shepherd II, greeted by police tear-gas attacks and arrests all around.) Then as now, the Coast Guard was on alert, and police helicopters were aloft - the might of a nation mustered to ensure thslaughter of 285,000 seals. For over a week, while constantly shadowed by a pair of Coast Guard ice breakers, the Sea Shepherd III anchored itself in the midst of the largest seal nursery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to watch over the flock. Only one sealing ship appeared while the Sea Shepherd III was on duty, and it quickly left the area. Unfortunately, when the Seasheperd III left, the blood bath ensued.
To preserve the delicate political balance of the seal hunt, the government blunts international outrage by preventing the world from witnessing the level of barbarity and chaos under which the seal hunt actually operates. Thus, it is illegal for non-hunters to approach the seal hunt within a half-nautical mile without a special permit.
Reber & Co., the giant Norwegian-subsidized seal processor, is one of the economic forces driving the seal hunt today, along with the demand for aphrodisiacs in Asian markets. The Canadian government's politically motivated objective of eliminating the harp seal aims to appease voters in the traditional fishing provinces, who believe that the seals are responsible for the collapse of eastern Canada's fish stocks.
The pelts are sold to Asian fisheries with the seal penises attached; it's only legal to sell penises as a by-product of harvesting pelts. But the pelts are discarded, and the penises powdered for inclusion in aphrodisiacs or sold whole in gift boxes for $100 to $400 a pop.
No one really knows how many harp seals there are off the east coast of Canada. The Canadian government currently assures everyone that the harp seal herd is not endangered and vaguely estimates their numbers between four million and 10 million. Canada is supposed to conduct an annual seal census every year prior to the hunt but hasn't bothered to do so since 1994. Due to the extremely poor ice conditions, it won't do one this year either. Instead, it goes right on assigning kill quotas without current figures on population and rate of reproduction. Even if the high end of Canada's best guess is correct, abundance has generally been no match for the stupidity, greed and arrogance of the people behind the industry.
For more information contact the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society at POB 628, Venice, CA 90294; (310) 301-SEAL (7325); fax 574-3161; seashepherd@seashepherd.org.