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ST. JOHN’S,
Newfoundland––Atlantic Canadian fishers clubbed and/or shot their
way toward a quota of 285,000 harp seals and hooded seals this spring, the most
in 15 years, because they wrongly blame seals––who don’t eat much
cod––for wiping out overfished cod stocks. When the International Fund
for Animal Welfare produced videotape of illegally killed newborn whitecoats on
ice off Iles de la Madeleine, Quebec, the perpetrators were quickly excused by
DFO area manager Roger Simon.
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Photograph of hooded seal
courtesy of WhaleNet |
“They’re
technically white-looking seals,” Simon said. “When the moulting
process starts, the white fur is still there as the new grey fur coming out is
underneath. It’s no longer a whitecoat, but it may appear white.”
The Canadian government used similar logic to reauthorize the offshore seal
hunt itself in late 1995, after a decade-long suspension due to international
protest. Throughout the 1980s, governments both Liberal and Progressive
Conservative traded generous cod quotas for votes against scientific advice,
until as predicted the cod stock crashed. Forced to halt cod fishing
indefinitely in 1992, the Progressive Conservatives lost the next election––but
Liberal fisheries minister Brian Tobin turned the crisis to his advantage by
scapegoating seals. As he did, again contrary to most scientific advice, he left
the federal government to run successfully for premier of Newfoundland.
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The WCU recognized
Atlantic cod among the 100 marine species added to the international “threatened”
list last fall. But that wasn’t what Canada wanted to hear. Bashed by the
seven-nation World Fisheries Council formed in August 1996 by scientists from
the U.S., Japan, China, Australia, Norway, Mexico, and Denmark, Canadian
politicians needed to claim that seal-killing is bringing the cod back.
“Declines
in stocks have stopped and individual cod are in good physical condition,”
new fisheries minister Fred Mifflin pronounced. |
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Photograph of cod by
Bonnie J. McKay and Alan C. Finlayson |
| With another
Canadian federal election expected in June, Mifflin on April 17 announced the
May 1 opening of an 18,000-metric-ton Atlantic cod season––about a
third of the 1986 quota, but enough, after two weekend rod-and-reel cod seasons
held in September 1996, to whet hopes that the cod will return to past
plentitude. Scientists generally consider that hope misplaced. |
They don’t get it
Human Resources Canada reported in May
1996 that about 30,000 Newfoundlanders, 6,400 Nova Scotians, 2,400 Quebecois,
and a handful of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island residents are still
federally compensated for losing cod-related jobs. HRC noted the “unwillingness
of many Maritimers to relocate,” due to “strong community ties, home
ownership, and an often unwavering belief that the fish stocks will return,”
confirming the findings of a 1995 audit that warned the goal of moving half the
displaced workers into other occupations would not be met. The HRC report was
disclosed in January 1997 by Murray Brewster of Canadian Press, who got it
through the Canadian Access to Information Act.
Not all former cod fishers are hurting for money. One, fined $5,000 in
February for illegally catching cod last June, had sold his cod license back to
the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for more than $100,000.
Other ex-cod fishers now fish out different species. The DFO briefly
closed the herring fishery in the Sydney Bight last November, fined at least six
fishers for either overfishing or catching too many undersized fish, and then
reopened the fishing, hoping the fines made the point.
The Cape Breton
lobster catch is down 30% since 1995. “The exploitation rate is sometimes
as much as 80-85%, and egg production is very low,” University of Quebec
oceanographer Jean-Claude Brethes warned in January. About 1,000 New Brunswick
crab plant workers will be displaced over the next five years, said a recent
provincial government report, because the local snow crabs are already gone.
Clearwater Fine Foods, of Nova Scotia, hopes to start a saury-fishing
industry. The plankton-eating nocturnal fish would be processed into oil, for
sale as a protein supplement. But saury are believed to be near the base of the
food chain for other fish, marine mammals, sea birds, and squid. |
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