Atlantic Canadian Musings

Mom and whitecoat pup (Photo: Mark Glover/HSI)

Today I was fortunate enough to experience for the second time in my life what many Nova Scotians never get to experience – I was lucky enough to spend a few quiet hours with the grey seals on Hay Island.

We set off shortly after 9:00 a.m., under the watchful eye of a sealer and a DFO official standing together watching us as we departed in our zodiac.

As we skimmed along the ocean, the waves swelling around us and beautiful long-tailed and eiderdown ducks flying past, my emotions were chaotic – my excitement to see the seals again was tempered with sadness, for I knew many of the pups I would spend time with today are marked for a horrific death.

I’m here in Sydney with Humane Society International to document the upcoming slaughter of these beautiful pups. Within the next few days, a group of Nova Scotia fishermen wielding wooden bats will descend on Hay Island, herd all of these seals together – including nursing moms and whitecoats - and bludgeon to death every single moulted pup they find.  It’s the third year the massacre of greys on Hay Island - part of the protected Scaterie Island Wilderness Area – is to take place with the blessing of the Nova Scotia Environment Minister.  I was present on Hay Island to document the slaughter in 2008 and the Horror I witnessed is forever imprinted on my brain and my heart.

This defenceless grey seal pup shortly will die a horrific death at the hands of Cape Breton sealers (Photo: Bridget Curran/ACASC)

But today was all about life; not death.  Today we were visiting the seals to photograph and to spend time with them.  Today we were there to document their life.  Sadly, the next time we are there on the island we must document their death.

We arrived on the island just as the clouds rolled away and the sun made its appearance.  Pups who had shed - or were still shedding – their fluffy white coats were scattered around the island, some in groups, others more solitary.  The pups were just hanging out, some lying on their backs, eyes closed, a look of bliss on their face as they basked in the sun.  Others lazily scratched their sides with their flippers and called out to each other across the island.  Large adult females nursed their whitecoat young while keeping a close eye on my movements. Massive bulls hoping to mate with the females once the pups were weaned were never far in the distance, patiently waiting.

What sort of person is capable of bludgeoning these pups with a baseball bat? Dingwall sealers Robert Courtney and Pat Briand do it every year. (Photo: Bridget Curran/ACASC)

It would be so simple and inexpensive to establish seal-watching tours in Cape Breton. Hay Island is not far from the mainland – at most, a 45-minute boat ride. People would pay money to do what I did today. So why isn’t it happening? Because a handful of fishermen who enjoy killing seals continue to lobby our government for access to all grey seals in this province, even on protected land, such as Hay Island and Sable Island. Because our federal and provincial governments are rotten to the core and eager to sacrifice seals to secure the votes of fishing and sealing industries. And because not enough Nova Scotians challenge the lies their government tells them about seals.

Bridget Curran with baby grey seals (Photo: Rebecca Aldworth/HSI)

And it is all lies.  Government and industry claim the seals are eating all the fish, despite there being no science to support that claim.  Government claims there are markets for seal products, when in truth world markets are closing and every day more people around the world shun the products of this inherently cruel industry.  There is absolutely no reason this massacre must continue.

Anyone with an ounce of compassion in their heart and logic in their head who could stand on Hay Island and see what I saw today would agree — seals on “protected” land should be protected, not sacrificed to blood-thirsty commercial industry lobbyists armed with baseball bats and box cutters.  Make seal-watching the activity on Hay Island; not seal-killing.  It’s a no-brainer.  Well, it should be, anyway.  But then, we’re dealing with a government that assigned both Environment and Fisheries portfolios to one Minister – clearly a conflict of interest - so brains obviously  aren’t part of the equation here.

Shame on Nova Scotia’s MLAs who voted to open Hay Island to commercial sealers.  Shame on NDP Environment/Fisheries Minister Sterling Belliveau for refusing to listen to reason and condemning these pups to a painful and terrifying death. Shame on my government for handing OUR land over to seal killers and using OUR tax dollars to fund the slaughter.

The opening day of the Hay Island grey seal slaughter was Monday, February 8th. For some reason the sealers have stayed on shore, and the grey seals have been left in peace to live for one more week.  But the sealers will not stay away forever.  In a few days, they will go to the island with their crude wooden bats.  But we’ll be there with our cameras to document the cruelty.  We will document the horrific death of these defenceless seal pups and we’ll use the footage to shut down all markets and in turn shut down this horrendous industry forever.

TAKE ACTION TODAY TO STOP THE MASSACRE OF BABY GREY SEALS ON PROTECTED LAND.

Other ways to help seals:

• Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition
• Humane Society International

Photo PETA

Mass hysteria seems to be the response to CBC’s article today regarding PETA’s latest anti-sealing campaign.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently launched a new website ‘Olympic Shame 2010‘ in response to the 2010 Olympics being held in Vancouver next year. PETA’s website transforms the three cuddly Olympic mascots Miga, Quatchi and Sumi into evil thugs, chasing and clubbing baby seals.

CBC in a news story published today on its website states that the Olympic Shame 2010 website “depicts blood-covered Inuit chasing a seal pup with stone-age clubs” and “Inuit with seal blood dripping from their hands and mouths, wielding stone-age clubs.”  Herb Jacques, who heads the Inuit community government in Makkovik, on Labrador’s northern coast, told CBC “To me it’s a mockery. It’s degrading to the Inuit.” Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami said she has written to PETA to ask the organization to stop using Inuit people in its campaigns.

Response on the CBC message board by the usual pro-sealing advocates has been swift. People posting in response to the story have been practically frothing at the mouth, crying “racism” and demanding that the Canadian government shut PETA’s website down.

Photo SSCS

This is a clear example of people getting up in arms before stopping to even consider whether the information they’ve been given is in fact correct. In this case, it is not.

First of all, the three Olympic mascots are NOT Inuit. They are fictional non-human creatures created for the Olympic website. Miga is a sea bear, Quatchi is a sasquatch and Sumi is an animal spirit that lives in BC.

Secondly, nowhere on the website does the word “Inuit” even appear. There is a video and photos of Atlantic Canadian commercial sealers killing pups. Inuit people are not depicted.

So why the accusations of racism? Why the hysteria? Why has CBC – a crown corporation directly responsible to Canadian Parliament and whose president is appointed by the Prime Minister - enflamed an already volatile situation with irresponsible and incorrect reporting?  Could it be yet one more action in the Canadian government’s campaign to hide the sins of the commercial seal slaughter behind the Inuit subsistence hunt, blurring the lines between the two, making the commercial slaughter appear necessary, and playing on the general public’s acceptance of subsistence hunting?

Photo Bridget Curran/ACASC

This comes close upon the heels of the government’s last PR stunt.  Recently, Governor General Michaelle Jean while on a visit to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, stunned reporters and cameramen when she sliced open a dead seal and ate a piece of the seal’s heart. She then spoke to reporters, defending the killing of seals, claiming that sealing is a “part of the way of life of thousands of people in our country. In the North, in the Arctic, in the East, also in coastal regions.” When asked by reporters if her actions were a message to the European Parliament which had recently banned seal products with an exemption for Inuit products, Jean replied, “Take from that what you will.” Clearly, that’s a “yes.”  She also defended her actions, explaining that it would have been rude to refuse the hospitality offered her by the people of Rankin Inlet as they prepared for the ceremonial community feast.

Response to her actions was swift. Some condemned her actions as a cynical PR stunt using Inuit as pawns in a government strategy to blur the lines between the two hunts and confuse the issue in people’s minds. Others applauded her actions, believing she acted out of solidarity with Inuit and was merely accepting a gift offered by the Inuit as part of the ceremonial dinner.

Photo SSCS

What most people do not realize is that seal has never been part of that ceremonial dinner. Rebecca Aldworth of Humane Society International/Canada in a letter published in The Hill Times points out that town manager Paul Wayne had stated that seal meat is not normally present at community feasts. Seal was not on the menu for that particular meal. Jean had expressed hope that it would be served, and hunters accordingly went out and killed two seals.  Jean was not offered the seal heart – she asked if she could try it.  Personally, I find it hard to believe that in her previous FOUR visits to the north, never once tried seal, especially considering it is part of the staple diet in those communities.   Equally hard to believe that it was mere coincidence that caused her to request seals be killed and brought to her for her to try when cameras just happened to be present, shortly after the EU voted on banning seal products.

Of course, anyone opposing the Governor General’s actions at Rankin Inlet was branded a “racist” and a “southerner” who did not understand or appreciate the northern way of life, guilty of trying to stop the Inuit subsistence hunt.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Many opposing the commercial slaughtering of seals do not target the Inuit subsistence hunt.  It is the large-scale industrialized annual slaughter of baby seals for their skin that is opposed.

This latest CBC story and its ensuing comments would make it appear that opposing the killing of seals is now automatically perceived to be racist.  This is a dangerous strategy the government is following and the Inuit would do well to distance themselves from such a campaign or risk a backlash.

Vancouver Olympic Shame: Learn more.