Grey seal pups doomed before they’re even born
Grey seal mom and pup - Hay Island, 2009
I read with sadness the report in Truro Daily News that grey seals are congregating on the eastern shore of Pictou Island and other secluded areas in the Northumberland Strait to give birth to their young. I read this news with sadness because I know all too well the grisly fate that awaits those pups.
In just a few short weeks Nova Scotia fishermen wielding wooden bats will converge on those nursery grounds and will bludgeon to death every moulting pup they find and drive adults into the water, causing nursing young to be abandoned and to starve to death.
NS fishermen bludgeoning pups 2008 Photo: HSI/Canada
This scene will be replayed throughout the province. Thousands of grey seal pups are killed each year on islands and shorelines of this province, subsidized by the Canadian government using our tax dollars. No pups are safe – even pups on provincially-held Hay Island, part of the protected Scaterie Island Wilderness Area, have been slaughtered for the past two years, with the blessing of the Nova Scotia government. Now sealers and DFO plan to butcher large numbers of grey seals on federally-held Sable Island.
In fact, legislation was recently rushed through with obscene haste (including a sham “public consultation” marred by Committee members’ obvious disinterest in the public’s input and MLAs’ jokes about having to pretend to listen to the public to make it look democratic) by the NDP government to amend the Wilderness Areas Protection Act to allow killing of grey seals on Hay Island. Nova Scotia’s Minister of Fisheries/Environment (can you say CONFLICT OF INTEREST?) Sterling Belliveau (a former fisherman) put forth Bill 50 but could not explain why he felt changes to the Act were necessary.
Dead grey seal pup, Hay Island 2008 Photo: HSI/Canada
Pups are not the only target of Nova Scotia fishermen. Each year the Nova Scotia government issues “nuisance licences” to fishermen who wish to kill seals they claim interfere with their fishing gear. Unknown numbers of grey seals are shot or bludgeoned by fishermen and their rotting carcasses are left to be discovered by unfortunate tourists.
It is unclear why exactly the Nova Scotia government issues nuisance licenses, as it is the opinion of Mike Hammill, Section Head of Marine Mammal Research for DFO that “it is quite evident that there is not a nuisance seal problem in Nova Scotia.” Hammill is also concerned at the sheer volume of nuisance licenses issued, stating in internal DFO correspondence that Nova Scotia “is issuing licences as if it is a wild cowboy shoot.”
There is absolutely no justification for killing grey seals here in Nova Scotia. Government claims that seals are preventing fish stocks from rebounding have no basis in science. DFO scientists admit there is no evidence killing seals will bring fish stocks back. The government simply scapegoats seals to cover up its own mismanagement of our oceans. Nobody wants seal products – in recent years markets have been closing, Russia has ended its own cruel seal slaughter, and China is unlikely to become the saviour of the dying sealing industry. Let’s face it – the seal hunt is far more trouble than it’s worth. It’s a financial drain on taxpayers and has marred our image abroad. It’s time the government admitted defeat and started talking about a license buyback program which would benefit everyone.
Grey seal nurseries in this province should be protected, not opened to sealers wielding wooden bats and box cutters. Seal-watching tours would be far more profitable than seal-killing.