Paul Watson: The end of the commercial Canadian seal hunt is in sight

By Paul Watson

”Mr. Speaker, I would like to see the six million, or whatever number is out there, killed or sold, or destroyed or burned. I do not care what happens to them. The fact that the markets are not there to sell more seals....What they (the fishermen) wanted was to have the right to go out and kill the seals. They have that right, and the more they kill, the better I will love it.”

—John Efford, former Newfoundland Minister of Fisheries and former Canadian Minister of Natural Resources, to the Newfoundland Legislature on May 4, 1998

The surest sign that the horrific commercial slaughter of baby harp seals will soon be ended is the fact that in a fit of whining desperation and seething anger, Canadian politicians and bureaucrats this week raised the kill quota of harp seals by 55,000 to a high of 338,000 seals. Canada also intends to kill 55,000 grey seals and 8,500 hood seals.

The bloody clubs of Canada’s East Coast barbarian culture will begin swinging this week upon the nursery ice floes in the Canadian Gulf of St. Lawrence.

This is the best response they can come up with after two weeks of heavy blows to their obscene and bloody industry.

The bureaucrats in the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans are throwing a temper tantrum after the announcement by President Vladimir Putin of Russia that the killing of baby seals by Russian sealers has been banned. Putin openly called it a “bloody business”. The Irish Parliament banned all seal pelts without loopholes and exemptions. LUSH stores with 600 retail outlets around the world are displaying full window displays condemning the seal slaughter in partnership with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and collecting petitions to send to the Canadian government.

For the first time ever, a member of the Canadian Senate, Senator Mac Harb, has drafted a motion to end the slaughter although only the Green Party has had the courage to speak out against the killing. The boycott of Canadian seafood organized by the Humane Society of the United States is still going strong. Demonstrations have taken place against the Canadian slaughter in hundreds of cities worldwide.

And next month, Europe is posed to pass a bill banning all seal products into European markets. Seal products have been banned in the USA since 1972 and the Canadian government’s negotiations with the Bush Administration to overturn the ban were shot down in flames with the election of President Barack Obama.

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans is a hornet’s nest of hissy fits and nail-biting sore losers. They’ve lost and they know it, they just are refusing to accept the stark reality that their glorified welfare tradition of bashing out the brains of baby seals is an obscenity that will soon be tossed onto the immoral trash heap of history.

Over the last week, the Canadian government has been assaulting LUSH with their pathetic propaganda, whining that the seal defenders are being “unfair” in accusing Canadian sealers of killing baby seals. You see, it’s all in the definition. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans defines a baby seal as any seal over two weeks of age even if they can’t swim and are helpless on the ice as some cigarette-smoking, beer-chugging, club-swinging, sadistic, immoral thug approaches and proceeds to kick, slash, club, and skin them alive.

The bureaucrats and the politicians are paid to deny reality. A few years ago I debated Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette on Canadian national television. She was angrily insistent that the seal slaughter was, in her words, “the most well-managed, humane slaughter of animals in the world”.

Yet when I asked her if she had ever gone to the seal hunt, she admitted she had not. She was just mindlessly parroting the party line.

In Canada, in order to kiss the rear posteriors of Newfoundland and Eastern Quebec voters, the politicians actually bicker with each other over who loves the killing of seals the most in a childish game of competitive viciousness.

I have opposed the seal slaughter since the early 1960s. As a Canadian boy I deplored it and to this day I continue to oppose it. The government would have everyone believe that only city-dwelling, primarily foreign, middle class or upper middle class people who know nothing about fishing communities oppose the slaughter of seals.

Yet the leadership of the anti-sealing movement has been very much from the Maritimes provinces. Rebecca Aldworth, who leads the Humane Society of the United States efforts, is from a Newfoundland out port. Brigitte Curran, who led the demonstration in Halifax last week and has opposed the slaughter for years, is a Nova Scotian. I was raised in a fishing village in New Brunswick as the eldest of seven children in a poor community, where the poor kids like us went to school with lobster sandwiches because lobster were free for the taking (not any longer of course). As Maritimers from Atlantic Canada, we opposed the slaughter for the simple reasons that it is cruel, unnecessary, barbaric, and a threat to the Atlantic marine eco-system.

I have actively intervened against the slaughter of seals since 1975, leading numerous expeditions by ship into the ice to block, harass, and interfere with the vicious business of killing seals. During that time I have seen horrific acts of cruelty and I’ve experienced the violence of the sealers personally. I have been beaten, threatened, arrested, ridiculed, and persecuted by the government of Canada for almost forty years.

And now, finally, I can see the desperation in the eyes of the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the sealers. The world is changing and the barbarians are going to be left behind for there can be no place for the savage slaughter of seals, especially baby seals, in the 21st century.

Yes, seals will die this year, but they will not get their ridiculously high quota for the simple reason that the money is simply not there anymore. Only taxpayer subsidies can motivate the seal killers to afford to kill anymore. The profits are not there and the cost of fuel and the operation of their boats, the insurance, and the provisions just make it bad business.

But the Canadian government, in their fanatic zeal to see seals killed, have been responsible for the deaths of four sealers last year and the loss of numerous boats by refusing to enforce safety regulations with the result that ships are heading into the ice that were not built to sustain the conditions of the sea and weather at this time of year.

Last year, Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn’s policy of killing as many seals as possible saw four men killed when their wooden hulled fishing boat was dragged under the ice by a powerful Canadian government ice-breaker. His reaction was to switch the focus to Sea Shepherd by sending a SWAT team to board and seize our ship the Farley Mowat for the “crime” of documenting the killing of seals. That act alone has cost the government over a million dollars in losses.

Canadian fisheries ministers can always be counted on to overreact, as Loyola Hearn did last year. The current minister of fisheries, Gail Shea, has done to same with her hysterical announcement to increase the killing in the face of worldwide opposition. She knows that the sealers can’t possibly kill that many seals. It’s her way of saying that Canada will do whatever it wants, wherever it wants, however it wants with the seals and will never acknowledge that the slaughter of baby seals is the horrifically cruel massacre that the rest of the world views it. Instead of admitting defeat she has given the world the “finger” with this unscientific, politically motivated increase in kill numbers.

Today, with the head of the former KGB Mr. Putin calling the seal slaughter cruel and disgusting, with people from dozens of nations demonstrating all around the world, with nation after nation banning obscene seal products, with Canada’s name and reputation being dragged through the mud, with Ireland banning the pelts taken by Canadians of primarily Irish descent from Newfoundland, and with condemnation by the European Parliament, the writing is on the wall. The Canadian commercial seal hunt is on the ropes economically and will soon be going the way of other despicable practises throughout the ages like slavery, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, child labour, and scalp-hunting.

I don’t expect the Canadian government and the sealers to surrender gracefully. Grace is a virtue for gentlemen and women and there is nothing gentle about the sealers or the Canadian politicians who have been defending them for years. I’m sure they will continue to torture and kill seals for spite and perverse sadistic pleasure, to shoot them on sight, and to whine about the unfairness of the seal defenders as they cry cowardly tears into their stale Labatt’s beer. That is the behaviour I have come to expect from them—petty, vicious, whining, and cowardly. We’re probably stuck with them until the next post-seal killing generation, when their children’s children will look back in horror on the cruelty of their murdering ancestors.

But we will have the satisfaction of knowing that we will have crippled their sadistic industry with the result that far fewer seals will be killed in the future.

Last year, a Canadian reporter actually asked me if I was ready to apologize to the sealers for remarks I made accusing them of gross cruelty. I said that indeed I was, and looking into the live broadcast camera, I said, “I apologise for being a Canadian and being associated with the most vicious and barbaric slaughter on the planet—the Canadian seal hunt.”

Perhaps soon, hopefully very soon, I won’t have to continue to apologise for being a Canadian.

Captain Paul Watson is founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and a founding member of the Greenpeace Foundation. He is a former contributor to the Georgia Straight and ran for mayor of Vancouver in 1996 as a candidate for the Green Party.

Comments

9 Comments

amber

Mar 24, 2009 at 8:31pm

Thank you for such an awesome and inspiring article. You more than anyone would know how horrendous this senseless killing spree is. Believe me these killers will see the horrors of their deeds coming back to them again and again. Please keep writing and informing us!! Many of us are supporting your work both in spirit and in consciousness

Fossil

Mar 25, 2009 at 6:46am

Gail Shea should be prosecuted on the same basis as Slobodan Milosevic, authorizing mass murder. When misguided teenagers abuse a cat the media, police, judiciary sustem is in full gear, the "community" is outraged. Exterminating 300,000 harp seal pups is Politically Correct?
Just like Tasering an unarmed passanger at YVR until dead? Shame on us! G-8, UN turn a blind eye? shame on them too.

NEWFIEGIRL

Apr 9, 2009 at 11:54am

I am sorry you feel that way about the seal hunt and Newfoundlander's.If you walk the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador in the spring of the year you will soon realize the trouble the herds are in. They are dying and their starving bodies are washing up on the shores. There is a need to continue a hunt in order for the seals to survive.We are not mass muderers as some people may think, we are simply trying to survive.Yes the pelts are sold but as for the most part of the carcasses they are distributed amongst the communities and eaten.I ask everyone who reads this to try sometime and view the ocean floor as a herd of seals move through an area, it would blow your mind as to volume of distruction that these seals leave behind. They consume only the stomach of a cod fish. In order for a seal to be able to comsume 35 lbs of stomache it will destroy approximently 100 lbs of fish and more. You do the math on a herd that consisits of 1 million head. These seals are starving and freezing because the can not make the fat they need to survive the cold. I could only wish that Mr Watson would take the civil time to go out with a hunter and see the condition of these seals. I could only wish he would take the time to see that we are not savages, but survivors of many many hardships over the years. I was born in Newfoundland on the Great Northern Peninsula and I see the world through different eyes....I see.... people in Canada starving,homeless,lost and confused.I see...people with out jobs,money, and education. You are all worried about the poor baby seals that haven't been hunt for many years but I suggest you take a look at the PEOPLE , everyone has a need to survive.So I say to you all the next time you decide to have chicken, pork or a steak think of how that animal was butchered and you will see that the seal hunt is no different. I am proud to be a NEWFIE and stand true to my word. Like Pink sang "Dear Mr.President, come and take a walk with me" I say to you Mr Watson come and take a walk with ME.
Thank you.

NEWFIEGIRL

Apr 13, 2009 at 9:36am

Mr Watson After taking another look at some of your remarks about the way we live I come to a conclusion that you have been given everything handed to you and you never really worked an honest day in your life. To sit back and say to people that we are heartless masss murderers is very unfair of you. STOP I say , take a look at what you are saying ...you think that 300,000 seals in a hunt will destroy the millions upon millions of seals that are scavaging the oceans. Take a plane Mr Watson when the herds move through when the ice is covered with seals,12 or 13 miles long and 6 or 7 miles wide and blackened with seals. Get out of your plane on that ice and see how cute they are then...starving and vicious is what you will get...then after a big storm comb through the shore lines and pick up the carcasses and see there starving bodies rotting along the beach...Mr watson I am not saying that some of the causes you fight for is all wrong because I am not ...what i am saying to you all is that we also depend on the hunt for food...I don't try to take your steak or your fried chicken away from you and there is millions of cows and chickens murdered for that purpose too...food. Stop Look Listen to what I am saying. Go out there and document the vast herds and there distruction. You fail to remined people that the white coat hunt has ended many many years ago and it is illegal to do so...you are Sir living in the past and now is the future and the future of the herd is a hunt so the waters dont become too heavily populated and they destroy everything....I say can we use the Farley Mowat to clean the waters of their dead bodies....

Newfiegirl

titus

May 14, 2009 at 12:57am

Oh for the love of everything good and decent in the world. Its some poor folks trying to make a livin and feed their kids til Ottawa tells em they can go catch a cod. You people talk about barbarism and cruelty. Well let me tell you something folks, if my child was starving to death and a baby seal was within arms reach, id tear that thing apart with my bare hands if it meant my family could eat. I dont enjoy torturing or harming something unnecessarily. Yet clubbing isnt barbaric, its quick if its done properly. The age of these creatures is utterly irrelevant as is seen all through nature. The weakest of a species, usually the very young or the very old are singled out and taken down by predators. the predator knows both that its the least expenditure of its energy for the greatest gain as well as the fact that it is culling the weak. Those of you crying for your poor lost baby seals are merely seeking to disrupt the natural order of things. I will state once again I can agree with wanting to stop unnecessary suffering. Yet I've spent a lot of time reading the opinions of different groups protesting this hunt and Ive found time and time again they resort to lies, or pictures that are blatantly inaccurate. I cannot support such a group, that uses deception and outright blatant denial of fact to make their point. all of you should be ashamed for the image you are trying to put on a group of people who are merely trying to survive.

Brock Maclean

Nov 2, 2009 at 2:21pm

What most of us complain about is the barbaric way they are killed and left to die in pain and suffering..kill them humanely if you have to...as far as Canadians dying of hunger.come on!!! What planet are you on...Newfies are the biggest recipients of welfare checks in the whole country and most are overweight and down right just plain lazy...95% of the fishing income is from other than seal hunting...Hunting..what a joke to use that word...why not at least taser the seals? Kill them quick like Robert Jukanski died!!

Who eats seal meat? Give me a break! I heard it tastes like cat food. Seal hunters are cowards.

I am not happy my tax dollars support the Coast Guard who have ice breakers which break a path for the sealers...Canada is a great country...but why ruin our reputation so we can make $12 million on seal pelts?

Brock MacLean
Coquitlam, BC
cbmaclean@yahoo.com

Shawouin

Nov 17, 2009 at 2:55pm

Brock, you are wrong. The seal doesn't die in more pain then any others animals kill for food. You are so brainwashed by those "animalist" organisation. Get your information elsewhere, seal aren't used only for the meat, but also for the fat and a lot of other stuff.

The only argument people against seal hunting have is that it's cruel and that we shouldn't hunt baby seal. This is false all the way. You will always make me laugh with your double standard. Defend the seal, but you don't care at all for the little birds or the little mammals.

Lady pitbull

Mar 9, 2013 at 4:04pm

We are vegans Newfie girl and nature took care if itself long before you we're born to count animals and play God deciding what animals should be slaughtered and what should be bred. When did you get appointed to position of God? You newfies are an embarrassment to Canadians and when you are proud of your cave woman barbaric savage beliefs we are beyond embarrassed. This is not Ethiopia you moron no one has starved in Canada, this is a ridiculous excuse. Worst case scenario to get a welfare check and sit on your ass. You will not starve. Another thing is Mother Nature takes care if nature, she don't need your help, trust me, she's been doing it for millions of years. Go get an education and get a real job, you are not in the 1800's anymore. And you make me laugh, when you compare yourself to savage wild beasts, you describe yourself wonderfully, couldn't do it better myself. You disgust me.

Janette

May 25, 2014 at 6:57pm

Great article! You're a true inspiration and I hope this disgusting cruelty ends very soon. Like right NOW!