Fisheries Committee on Oct. 5th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you.

Just before we go on to our next questioner, I'd like to say that in Norway they duplicate or triplicate everything we do. The seals that are shot are still hit with the hakapik. They palpate the skull to make sure it's crushed. They do all three. It might be a little excessive, and it may slow down the work of the sealers, but it might go a ways towards diminishing somewhat at least some of the rougher edge of IFAW and some of those groups.

Do you have a comment on that?

[Dr. Alice Crook]

I didn't know that. So they are palpating the skulls now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Yes.

[Dr. Alice Crook]

That's good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Even if they shoot the seals, they still use the hakapik on them.

[Dr. Alice Crook]

I think we could be double and triple sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

It seems to be a little bit of overkill. Pardon a poor pun.

[Dr. Alice Crook]

Does IFAW criticize them? I think their hunt takes place more in a boat.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

We're easier.

[Dr. Alice Crook]

We're easier because we're not so remote. We're easier to get to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Manning, go ahead, please.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentation, Ms. Crook. There's great information there.

In regard to the comment made--and I guess there's no such thing as making the seal hunt look nice--according to reports, 98% of our seals are killed humanely. In most jurisdictions, that would be a wonderful record. But with the 2% here, and the fact that the visuals we see are disturbing to most human beings, I would think, when they don't understand exactly what we're trying to do, having independent observers like you go out there and take an independent look at it is one thing.

Last year, and certainly in this year's seal hunt and others, there was some concern raised about IFAW, HSUS, and whoever being out there creating what sealers believe is a danger to them. Their comeback is that the sealers are infringing on their rights--whatever those may be--to participate in and go out and observe the hunt. I've seen videos of Zodiacs crossing in the front of the boats, and basically interfering with the seal hunt.

I've talked to the minister on occasion about banning what I would think are people who are infringing. My belief is that if I were going to interfere with a person's job in any other jurisdiction, the authorities would be called in to remove me from that position. I think it's a hindrance too. What do you believe? It also goes back to public relations. What would be the best way to eliminate this situation, which, I believe, is a danger to the sealers, and which also does nothing to give the seal hunt a positive image?

[Dr. Charles Caraguel]

I don't know if we can answer this question, because we are specialists in animal health, not in management of such events. I haven't organized any rock concerts or stuff like that before, so I don't really know how to answer this question.

[Dr. Alice Crook]

I agree that's not our area of expertise, but I also agree with your assessment that it poses a danger and that it is an incendiary point that is likely to worsen. There was a lot more Zodiac activity and that kind of thing this year. That interferes with enforcement within the hunt because the officers are trying to monitor the interaction between sealers and protestors and keep the protestors from getting hurt or getting too much in the way, so they have less time for actually monitoring and enforcing regulations within the hunt. It definitely has an impact on the animals' welfare.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Blais touched earlier on the misinformation campaign. Government spends x number of dollars on the sealing industry trying to show the world that this is a humane function. You're doing your part through the reports you have posted. It seems for some reason or other that we're not getting that message across.

How would you suggest government tell the world that this is humane? We're trying. We're spending dollars doing it, but the fact is that to some extent it doesn't seem to be getting through, especially to the European areas. Do you have any ideas of how we should approach that to try to get our message out there? We've been talking about it for years, but there still seem to be major problems.

[Dr. Alice Crook]

One thing is that this report is an international report by veterinarians, and if the government can say that they put in place some of the recommendations, that may be an answer to some of the criticisms. I understand there are going to be some changes to the marine mammal regulations, including those concerning palpating for a crushed skull. If there were measures such as requiring training of the sealers or licensing of all the sealers, those might be ways of showing that the government is responding to some of the recommendations that have come from this independent group.

[Dr. Charles Caraguel]

Transparency is probably the best way to deal with this problem, because if you just invite people and say, “Go to see for yourself and show me”, once again you have to be careful. The seal hunt in theory could be humane, but because people are living more with qualitative rather than quantitative pictures, that means that even if they have the 1% of the 0.5%, they're going to show that. It's just one second on the video.

As veterinarians, we are trying to reduce the probability of people shooting these kinds of pictures with video cameras. If we can promote training and education in the field to reduce this small percentage of the violation of suffering animals as much as we can, all these animal rights associations are going to have a very hard time finding pictures, and probably they're going to use old pictures, as they're doing right now. Because of the ice conditions we had this year, I would be very surprised if they had any video from 2006. They would have had to go too far away in a helicopter to get there.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Most things are a debate, and there now seems to be a debate on the population of the seal hunt. From seeing your slides, I think you've touched on 5.8 million. We have a hunt this year of 325,000 pelts, and a recovery of 255,000--I'm not just sure of my numbers.

A major concern in my province is the impact of the seal population on other fisheries, such as the cod fishery, the salmon fishery, and so on. There seems to be a great belief among fishermen themselves that an overpopulation of seals has contributed to the downturn in our fishery.

From a scientific point of view, would you care to comment on that in relation to the impact it's having, or that you believe it's having?

[Dr. Alice Crook]

We're not population biologists, but we've had some excellent presentations on population management. It seems as if the seal population is healthy currently.

There are concerns that as the quota is being raised, it's being raised beyond the replacement level of the seals. There really isn't any evidence to show the seals are responsible for the depletion of the cod stocks, and it would be very hard to do a controlled study on that, somehow to cordon off a body of water, a bay or something, and measure the seals, the cod consumption, and all that sort of thing. It would be really hard to come up with those actual measurements. But there isn't any real evidence that that's the case right now.

[Dr. Charles Caraguel]

Once again to be clear, as independent working veterinarians, an independent group, we are not population scientists, so we don't have the expertise to say if the seal population is properly managed or not.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

From the point of other herds, I remember a caribou herd in my own province. No caribou hunt was allowed. Eventually, some type of brain worm got into the caribou and wiped out the herd. If we've gone from 3 million seals, to 5 million seals, touching 6 million, and continuing, eventually Mother Nature will take care of it. That's the way we look at it. A sustainable hunt is one thing, but the fact that the population of the seals has increased drastically over the past several years, especially with the few years that we had a downturn in the hunt.... I realize you're not population experts, but I'm sure you have received information, as you said.

Is there any point when the scientific community believes the hunt takes care of itself? Is there any information that says at some point we're going to have to deal with the seal population?

[Dr. Alice Crook]

You mean because it's increasing too much?

[Dr. Charles Caraguel]

On the colonization of our ecosystem, usually if you have food for no more than 10 animals, the 11th and 12th die. It's a rude competition of Mother Nature. If we have six million seals right now it's because we have food for six million, but maybe there isn't food for seven million. Usually the ecosystem has its own manner of managing the population. That's a general concept of biology, and we aren't very good at that.

[Dr. Alice Crook]

The other thing this year was that the ice conditions were really different. There was a lot less ice, so there was a lot of speculation as to what that would do to the seals' ability to whelp and reproduce. I haven't heard any real consequences yet that have been noted.

[Dr. Charles Caraguel]

I haven't heard anything yet.