According to the Fur Institute of Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s planned cull of up to 220,000 grey seals off Nova Scotia’s sable island, is a prime example of an ecological “mess” created by the animal-rights movement against the sustainable-use of seal products.
The plan – which could cost Canadian taxpayers up to $35 million -involves either a large-scale kill and disposal of grey seals, or a targeted contraception program aimed at Canada’s grey seal population, which has grown to 300,000 strong and is now considered a danger to the recovery of threatened groundfish stocks.
According to the Fur Institute, all industry efforts to utilize the animals in accordance with government-set quotas have failed in recent years, due in large part to the strong animal-rights lobby against the use of the animals.
“We have said for years that there are only two options for managing abundant populations, as a sustainable resource, or as a pest,” said Rob Cahill, the Fur Institute’s Executive director.
Members of the Fur Institute involved in the seal processing sector have indicated that it has not been possible to develop a viable plan for the commercial use of grey seals in recent years, due to anti-sealing pressures.
“We hope that this announced cull will be a wake-up call for Canadians who have questions about the commercial use of harps seals, the population of which dwarfs the current grey seal numbers by 23 to 1,” says Cahill.
Quick Facts on Sealing in Canada
– An April 2010 poll conducted by TNS Canadian Facts indicated that 2 out of 3 Canadians accept seal hunting where populations are not endangered and animal welfare is respected.
– The same poll indicated that fully 85% of Canadians appreciate the need to manage seal populations in relation to the abundance of important fish stocks.
– Canada’s harp seal population consumes approximately 8 million metric tonnes of fish annually. By contrast, Canada’s entire fishery yields less than 1 million metric tonnes annually.
The Seals and Sealing Network Study was conducted using TNS Canadian Facts’ national bi-weekly telephone omnibus service. A total of 1,017 nationally representative Canadian adults were interviewed between April 12 and 18, 2010. For a survey sample this size, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
i hope the sun has extra bandwidth to handle this post count cause i can see it going viral….. good luck
wow a 220 thousand cull what a waste. i wonder how the tree huggers will feel about that.
Gee I know! Lets let the people who live in hte area, hunt them and harvest the meat and pelts so rather than wasting the animals through massive culls, they can help keep the seal numbers under control and make some money to supplement their income at teh same time.. oh.. umm wait.. we used to do that, but some bored muscian and his wife decided we shouldn’t.
Bored, too much money and too much spare time!
Outdoorsguy
Nick, the one I love was the publicity stunt he and his ex-golddigger wife pulled..as a sort of bonding experience.
Didn’t do much for their marriage though…he lost a tonne of $$ in the settlement and I hear she’s nearly broke now!
Outdoorsguy
then she’ll just be back for more
i wonder if we will be seeing more and more of these culls in the future. its an awfull thing when all the parameters are there to harvest instead of culls. didnt they have a special hunt for snow geese on the quebec side last year to reduce the numbers.that would make more sense no
What a shame to see such a valueable resource get out of control. I just don’t understand these animal rights anarchists, I hope you’re happy.
It is not a grey seal in a photo 😀 it`s a harbor seal!!
Tks Janiffer, I’m not a seal expert by any means..and they do look similar.
What about this one? I updated the photo with what appears to be a grey seal.
Thanks for the heads-up on that!
Outdoorsguy
The culling makes me wonder- where are the natural enemies of the seals? Have we culled their population too?? HMMM