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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: May 2006
Sealers overkill quota, mob observers
OTTAWA––Atlantic Canadian sealers reportedly killed as many as 16,000 more infant seals than their 2006 record quota of 325,000, “yet not one sealer was arrested,” observed Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson.
Logistic problems kept the Sea Shepherds away from the Atlantic Canada seal hunt in 2006, but Watson initiated a boycott of Costco stores. Costco executives on March 1 told Sea Shepherd volunteer Stephen Thompson that Costco would quit selling seal oil capsules, Watson said, only to renege less than two weeks later under pressure from Newfoundland politicians.
Animal Friends Croatia international campaigns coordinator Bernard Vjeran Franoic enjoyed more success in persuading the Croatian government to ban seal pelt imports. Other nations banning imports of Canadian seal pelts, for a variety of humanitarian, environmental, and commercial reasons, include the U.S., Mexico, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and Greenland.
“With the threat of boycotts growing and with more countries considering bans on seal products, officials with the Canadian Fisheries Department are reviewing their options to protect the hunt,” reported Chris Morris of Canadian Press on April 26, 2006. “At the very least, they say there could be new restrictions placed on hunt observers.”
Violence against the Humane Society of the U.S. observer team led by Newfoundlander Rebecca Aldworth began on March 27 when sealing vessels repeatedly charged the two inflatable boats used by Aldworth and colleagues. Canadian fisheries minister Loyola Hearn then banned Aldworth, two other HSUS observers, and two foreign reporters from the ice.
Trouble flared again on April 12, after the hunt moved north from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Labrador Front. At Cartwright, Newfoundland, a mob of about 50 sealers and their supporters sat on the floats of a helicopter leased by HSUS and the Franz Weber Foundation of Switzerland, so that it could not take off. The next day, at Blanc-Sablon, Quebec, about 60 people blocked a van that the reporters accompanying the Aldworth team were trying to take to their helicopter.
While the HSUS team was unable to reach the ice, an International Fund for Animal Welfare helicopter flying out of Goose Bay, Labrador, videotaped the hunt on both days, IFAW spokesperson Regina Flores told Canadian Press. On April 14, however, the Cartwright mob prevented the IFAW helicopter from refueling.