Le gouvernement canadien a refusé d'émettre des permis d'observation
aux journalistes internationaux, scientifiques et défenseurs des
animaux pour la chasse au phoque qui a débuté hier au sud du Golfe St-
Laurent.
Voici un reportage sur les bébés phoques passé au 20h de la chaîne de
télévision France2 le 29 mars 2007 :
Pour le visualiser en streaming :
http://www.dailymotion.com/veganforever/video/2735983
Pour le télécharger et l'archiver sur disque dur :
http://odea.free.fr/vegan/TV/20070329-France2-20h-phoques.wmv
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Few Pups Seen on Opening Day of Canada's Seal Hunt
CHARLOTTETOWN, Prince Edward Island, Canada, April 2, 2007 (ENS) -
Climate change has turned the ice in Canada's Southern Gulf of St.
Lawrence to slush weeks earlier than usual, so few young seals were
to be seen as the annual Canadian harp seal hunt opened today. Mother
seals could not climb onto solid ice to give birth and so were forced
to give birth at sea, where thousands of pups have drowned.
Even if they did survive their birth, newborn seals cannot swim in
their first few weeks of life and need a foothold of solid ice, so
thousands more pups perished in the icy slush.
Conservationists pleaded with the Canadian Department of Fisheries
and Oceans, DFO, to call a halt to this year's seal hunt, but despite
concern expressed about the softening ice, the hunt opened on
schedule today.
The 2007 harp seal total allowable catch has been set at 270,000,
Loyola Hearn, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, announced on
Saturday. That is down from the 2006 quota of 325,000, and about the
same as the quota set from 1997 to 2002.
Minister of Fisheries Loyola Hearn is a member of Parliament who
represents Newfoundland and Labrador. (Photo courtesy Office of the
Minister)
"Although ice conditions have deteriorated in the Southern Gulf of
St. Lawrence this spring," said Hearn, "conditions remain good where
the majority of seals are located, which is in the Northern Gulf and
on the Front, off the northeast coast of Newfoundland and Labrador."
The seal hunt in the northern Gulf begins on Wednesday, and the DFO
has yet to announce a date for the start of the hunt on Labrador
Front.
"We've noticed that the ice over the past four or five years has been
deteriorating and this year it's giving us some concern," said DFO
spokesman Phil Jenkins. "We're seeing poor ice conditions. So, we can
expect a higher than average mortality of seal pups."
The Canadian government refused to issue any observation permits to
international journalists, scientists, and observers for the southern
Gulf of St. Lawrence hunt.
"Canada's cruel baby seal slaughter started this morning and, for the
first time in nine years, I have been denied access to the opening
day of the hunt," said Rebecca Aldworth, director of Canadian
wildlife issues for the Humane Society of the United States. Aldworth
grew up in Newfoundland and has been a longtime observer of the
Canadian seal hunt.
Observers with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, IFAW,
traveled by plane and helicopter and observed a single sealing vessel
as it began hunting seals on the opening day of the Gulf hunt.
They said sealers were shooting at seals on small ice pans from their
boat. "What we saw today was the cruelty of shooting seals in open
water," said Sheryl Fink, observer and senior researcher with
IFAW. "A recent veterinary panel recommended banning the practice of
shooting seals in open water, and today we saw why."
"Seals were seen in agony after being shot at and injured, but not
instantly killed. One seal was hauled alive onto the deck of the boat
with a steel hook before finally being beaten to death," Fink said.
"The conditions this year are disastrous," said Fink. "I've surveyed
this region for six years and I haven't seen anything like
this. "There is wide open water and almost no seals. I only saw a
handful of adult harp seals and even fewer pups, where normally we
should be seeing thousands and thousands of seals."
Seal swims through icy slush in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence
(Photo courtesy IFAW)
"Even Canadian government scientists are estimating up to 100 percent
of the pups born in the southern Gulf died because of the lack of
ice," said Aldworth. "It is reprehensible that the Canadian
government would allow sealers to kill the few surviving pups."
"These decisions are guided by principles of conservation, " said
Minister Hearn, who says the Atlantic harp seal population is
plentiful - nearly triple what it was in the 1970s. The current
Canadian government estimate of harp seals is about 5.5 million
animals.
"I also want to ensure that the people who depend on this resource
for their livelihood will benefit from it over the long-term," said
Hearn, defending the catch quota of 270,000. "This year's decision
takes into account the poor ice conditions we've seen in the Southern
Gulf of St. Lawrence."
Conservationists are not alone in raising their voices against
Canada's commercial seal hunt - the largest slaughter of marine
mammals in the world.
In the U.S. Senate on March 21, Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan
Democrat, introduced a resolution that urges the government of Canada
to end what the senator called "this senseless and inhumane
slaughter."
"It makes little sense to continue this inhumane industry that
employs only a few hundred people on a seasonal, part-time basis and
only operates for a few weeks a year, in which the concentrated
killings takes place," Senator Levin told his colleagues. "In
Newfoundland, where over 90 percent of the hunters live, the economic
contribution of the seal hunt is marginal. In fact, exports of seal
products from Newfoundland account for less than one-tenth of one
percent of the province's total exports."
He was joined in submitting the anti-seal hunt resolution by Senator
Joseph Biden, a Maryland Democrat, and Senator Susan Collins, a Maine
Republican.
The Canadian Sealers Association says that the harp seal population
is healthy and abundant and has nearly tripled in size in 35 years.
By comparison, it was 1.8 million in 1970. Sealers need the money,
the association says, and each seal pelt is selling for a top price
of C$65.
Journalist Jim Winter, who is also the founding president of the
Canadian Sealers' Association, defends the annual seal hunt and
attacks animal conservation groups.
"It's now four decades since animal rights groups started their anti-
sealing campaigns in Canada that have raised for them hundreds of
million of dollars," Winter writes on the Canadian Sealers
Association website. "During this time Canadian sealers have taken
their yearly quotas while more than doubling the population of the
harp seal herd to over five million animals."
He argues that sealing is not a conservation issue because harp seals
are not a threatened or endangered species.
Canadian sealer hooks a harp seal today amidst melting ice pans.
(Photo courtesy IFAW)
"The killing - while not pretty - is simply an outdoor abattoir and
it is as efficient and as humane as any abattoir in the western
world," Winter writes.
He says the sealers need income from the annual hunt to
survive. "Canadian sealers are rural people earning a living from the
sea," he writes. "Like all rural peoples - whether fishermen or
farmers - they do not have salaries."
"Sealers use as much of the animal as possible to produce a range of
products. They range from food and clothing to medicines, artisan art
and souvenirs. The animals sealers kill have the skin, fat, flippers
[meat] and some carcasses prepared and stored on the boat," writes
Winter.
"Remaining parts of the carcass are left on the ice, which melts to
return the remains to the sea where it becomes food for fish and
crustaceans. This avoids the land-based abattoir problem of disposing
of offal produced by animal slaughter. What could be more 'green'?
What could be more ecofriendly? "
But Winter does not address the issue of climate change, the miles of
open water instead of solid ice, the thousands of pups drowned.
Conservationists believe that deteriorating ice conditions may make a
continuation of the seal hunt impossible. "There are so few pups
left," said IFAW's Fink, "and here the sealers were wiping out the
last few survivors."
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2007/2007-04-02-04.asp
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