Evidence of meeting #33 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was seals.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

David Lavigne  Science Advisor, International Fund for Animal Welfare
Rebecca Aldworth  Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

11:05 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are studying the Canadian seal hunt.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses. David Lavigne is from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, IFAW, and Rebecca Aldworth is from the Humane Society of the United States.

I know our members are anxious to ask questions. I understand Ms. Aldworth has a video presentation as well.

We would ask Mr. Lavigne to start, please, and we'll proceed. We have a few more members to arrive, but we might as well get at it. There will be more time to ask questions.

11:05 a.m.

Dr. David Lavigne Science Advisor, International Fund for Animal Welfare

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Distinguished members of the standing committee, thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.

My name is David Lavigne and I am science advisor to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. I have been conducting research on harp seals and other pinnipeds since 1969.

IFAW is an animal welfare organization whose mission is to improve the welfare of wild and domestic animals throughout the world by reducing the commercial exploitation of animals, by protecting wildlife habitats, and by assisting animals in distress.

Let me begin by stating the obvious. The controversy surrounding Canada’s commercial seal hunt, like all debates in modern conservation, is not about science or about facts. Rather, it is a conflict over differing attitudes, values, and societal objectives and differing views about what is right and wrong. In other words, Canada’s sealing debate is a political debate with ethical overtones.

Within this political debate, scientific facts often become misrepresented, misquoted, or fabricated by some of the participants. Today I would like to spend a few minutes discussing what is known and what is unknown about some of the issues surrounding Canada’s seal hunt. I will also provide a few insights from modern conservation biology to suggest a way forward.

Canada’s seal hunt is the largest remaining commercial hunt of a marine mammal population anywhere in the world. That alone makes it an important conservation issue, despite what you may have read or heard. Modern conservation is about managing the impacts of human activities on individual animals, populations, and ecosystems, and it is about values

According to the latest published estimate, the northwest Atlantic harp seal population numbered about 5.8 million animals in 2005. That estimate has confidence limits of plus or minus 2 million animals, meaning that the population could have been as low as 3.8 million, or as high as 7.8 million. Such scientific uncertainty must be taken into account when developing management plans for any exploited species.

Canadian government scientists also tell us that the current sustainable yield is about 250,000, but of course that estimate is also uncertain. If the population were actually lower than 5.8 million animals, then the estimated sustainable yield would be lower as well.

As you are well aware, the current total allowable catch, or TAC, for harp seals is 335,000 animals, and that exceeds the estimated sustainable yield. The current TAC should therefore cause the population to decline. In this sense, the current TAC is not sustainable.

For the fourth time in the past five years, Canada’s landed catch in 2006—over 353,000 harp seals—exceeded the TAC, this time by almost 20,000 animals. Such overruns would not be tolerated in a well-managed hunt, yet this hunt is frequently described as well managed.

Unless the TAC is reduced and enforced, the government’s model predicts that the harp seal population will continue to decline. Over 95% of the animals killed in Canada’s commercial seal hunt are recently weaned pups, aged two weeks to about three months, animals that the majority of Canadians consider to be “baby seals”.

Public opinion polls repeatedly tell us that the majority of Canadians are opposed to the killing of seal pups.

While the fullest possible use remains an objective of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, that objective is not coming close to being realized. Most of the carcasses are left on the ice or dumped in the water. A recent report from Memorial University in Newfoundland claims that 80% of the blubber is discarded. The situation has become even worse in Norway, Canada’s major sealing partner, where the government subsidizes the killing of harp seals and now, apparently, pays out further subsidies to burn the pelts.

In short, hunts for harp seals in Canada and elsewhere are extremely wasteful, violating a 100-year-old founding principle of conservation, and raising serious ethical issues in the process.

Speaking of ethical issues and seal blubber, I note that one witness before this committee admitted that he has disguised shipments of seal oil to the United States. Such practice by Canada's sealing industry is not only unethical, but it is also illegal under U.S. law.

Moving on to broader fisheries issues, we know that harp seals did not cause the collapse of cod stocks off Canada's east coast. Furthermore, there is no scientific evidence that harp seals are impeding the recovery of cod or any other fish stock. In fact, culling harp seals might actually be detrimental to the recovery of cod. There is therefore no scientific justification for culling harp seals.

As DFO scientists, among others, have noted, legitimate proposals to cull seals should be submitted to independent evaluation, such as that outlined in the United Nations Environment Programme's protocol for the scientific evaluation of proposals to cull marine mammals. Canada has yet to do this. Regardless, there is emerging evidence that harp seals play an important and positive role in the northwest Atlantic ecosystem. Such marine ecosystems are extremely complex, and we have neither the expertise nor the ability to manage wild populations or entire ecosystems. All we can really do is try to manage human activities.

Then there's animal welfare, another component of modern conservation. Since 2000, two groups of veterinarians have examined Canada's commercial seal hunt. Although you would never know it from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, both of these veterinary reports are qualitatively remarkably similar. Both document what most reasonable people would consider unacceptably high levels of animal suffering. Consistently, when a third group of veterinarians was brought together by the World Wildlife Fund in 2005, that panel listed 11 recommendations that would have to be implemented in order to make Canada's commercial seal hunt more humane.

The only viable conclusion from the available evidence is that Canada's commercial seal hunt does not satisfy modern standards of humane killing as defined by folks like the American Veterinary Medical Association. Taken together, the facts of Canada's seal hunt raise a number of important ethical questions. Is it right, in the 21st century, to subsidize the killing of so many animals, many inhumanely, for non-essential products, while wastefully abandoning the majority of the carcasses and discarding most of the blubber?

In addition to factual issues, there are other things we know about, but the effects are unknown or difficult to predict precisely. Donald Rumsfeld might call these “known unknowns”. The most obvious and important known unknown today is global warming and its effect on harp seals and indeed hooded seals. The best study of these effects is on the impact of global warming on the formation of ice, upon which these seals depend for whelping and nursing, off Canada's east coast during February and March.

For most of the past 11 years, this region has experienced warmer than average winter temperatures and below average ice cover. While it is relatively easy to document the effects of global warming on ice conditions, it is more difficult to measure the precise impacts on seals.

A lack of suitable ice combined with violent storms and early breakup disrupts the seals' normal pupping season. This can result in increased abortions if female seals do not find ice upon which to give birth, or increased mortality of newborns if the ice breaks up before the end of nursing. For example, in 2002 DFO scientists assumed that 75% of the pups born in the Gulf of St. Lawrence died even before the hunt began. Such effects in any given year result in reduced cohort size, and have longer-term implications for population trends and population size.

If warm years with reduced ice coverage become the norm, as appears to be happening, there will be additional uncertainties. These include effects on the timing of reproduction, and the loss of critical breeding habitat. They also include effects on fish and invertebrates, leading to changes in the availability of prey for seals; and effects on seal condition, growth, reproductive success, and survival.

Managers have limited opportunities for dealing with the increased scientific and environmental uncertainty associated with global warming. But one thing management authorities can do, as recommended, for example, by World Wildlife Fund’s climate change program, is limit non-climate stresses, including over-hunting, on exploited species like harp seals that are being impacted by global warming.

WWF’s approach to building resilience to climate change is a good example of implementing a precautionary approach in conservation. Canada has included the precautionary approach in the preamble to the Oceans Act. The government claims that its management of the seal hunt is precautionary. It is not.

In modern precautionary approaches, total removals from a wild population are linked directly to the degree of scientific and environmental uncertainty. When uncertainty is high, the total allowable removals are reduced to ensure that wild populations are maintained at sufficiently high numbers that their future is not jeopardized.

In marked contrast, there is no mechanism in Canada’s seal hunt management plan linking total allowable catches to current scientific and environmental uncertainty. Furthermore, Canada’s management approach has never been subjected to the rigorous testing that is mandatory in the development of modern, precautionary management procedures.

A recent scientific study specifically examined the Canadian government’s approach for determining population status and trends for northwest Atlantic harp seals, and for providing advice on total allowable catches. It found that Canada’s management approach is likely to maintain a high total allowable catch, despite a declining population, and it risks seriously depleting the harp seal population by as much as 50% to 75% over the next 15 years.

That study recommended that Canada reduce the current TAC for harp seals to levels calculated from a well-established precautionary procedure, such as the potential biological removal method mandated for use with marine mammals under U.S. law. Such a step would drastically reduce Canada’s TAC for 2007. It would also dramatically reduce the likelihood that the population will be depleted by further over-hunting. It would provide some measure of resilience for the seals in the face of global warming, reduce the number of animals killed inhumanely, and reduce the amount of waste associated with Canada’s commercial seal hunt.

Thank you

11:15 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy

Thank you.

Ms. Aldworth.

11:15 a.m.

Rebecca Aldworth Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

My name is Rebecca Aldworth. I am the director of Canadian wildlife issues for the Humane Society of the United States.

The HSUS is the world's largest animal protection group. We have nearly 10 million members and constituents around the world, and we work internationally through Humane Society International.

HSUS is a multi-issue animal protection group. That means we work on a variety of issues, from the conditions for animals on factory farms to laboratories, puppy mills, cruel animal-fighting, and of course the protection of marine mammals and the ending of the fur trade.

The campaign to end the commercial seal hunt in Canada is actually one of our most prominent campaigns right now. We have worked for many years to put a final end to it.

I want to say that I was very conflicted about appearing here today. It's my opinion that this committee is not impartial when it comes to the issue of the commercial seal hunt. Based on attendance at previous hearings such as this and previous reports from this committee, it's my belief that the outcome of this committee hearing on the seal hunt is actually predetermined. But my colleagues tell me I'm being cynical, and for that reason, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you a few things about the commercial seal hunt from my perspective.

I have observed the commercial seal hunt in Canada for eight years at close range. I've observed it in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and I've observed it in the “Front”, which is northeast of Newfoundland. I, for that reason, have some experience, I think, in the issues regarding cruelty, and because I've studied this issue for 10 years, I have some knowledge about the economics of the commercial seal hunt and the various issues that pertain to commercial sealing in Canada.

I would like to talk just briefly about a few myths that I feel have been perpetuated in this committee and by this committee. I am going to go through these very quickly, as we all know we don't have much time here, so please bear with me.

The first issue is baby seals. Dr. Lavigne talked about it quite briefly, but I also want to touch on it. Canadian government kill reports show clearly that 97% of the seals killed in the past five years have been pups under the age of three months. The majority have been under one month of age at the time of slaughter.

When these animals are killed—and this is personal observation—many are not yet swimming and many are not yet eating solid food. They have literally no escape from the hunters and they're completely defenceless.

You can call them pups, you can call them juvenile seals, you can call them infants. I call them baby seals, because that's what I call a baby elephant or a baby hippopotamus or any other kind of wildlife. To me, they're baby seals, and anybody who's been on the ice floes with them would agree.

I want to talk about the issue—and this is a disgusting lie that has been stated by our government representatives repeatedly in recent months and I'm appalled as a Canadian that you're doing it—the concept that the footage that we're showing in Europe and elsewhere on our TV stations and on our websites is 20 years out of date. I was there over the past years when most of this footage was filmed. There is not one group out there using out-of-date footage. The footage that is being shown is from the last couple of seal hunts in Canada.

I'm going to show you some of it today, because I want you to see what the commercial seal hunt looks like. I would be willing to hazard a guess that many people in this room have never attended the commercial seal hunt themselves. I have for eight years.

I was appalled to hear members of this committee tell the European delegation last month that this is the most humane hunt in the world. I have been prevented by Canadian law and our unconstitutional marine mammal regulations from intervening as I have watched conscious seal pups stabbed with boat hooks and dragged across the ice floes. I have watched dead and dying animals thrown together in stockpiles. I have had to stand by and watch while a three-week-old seal pup choked to death on her own blood for 90 minutes. This is something I see routinely at the commercial seal hunt. I see wounded animals left to suffer, seals that are shot, some of them for up to eight minutes in open water.

I've seen this each and every year, and I've seen things that no human being should have to observe, not to mention the sealers themselves. I've seen the working conditions on the ice floes for the sealers, the people you claim to be here to defend. Some of these people are in their fifties and sixties. They're running across the ice floes, working in extreme weather conditions as quickly as possible. It's dehumanizing work for them and it's really dangerous. There is a reason that insurance companies put a $250,000 deductible on the boats when they go up there in those ice floes.

Read the news clippings. Boats get trapped in the ice every year. People have to be airlifted out of the hunt. This is a dangerous hunt for the people involved.

I want to talk to you a little bit about the idea of seals and fish. This is another myth that I hear perpetuated in this committee: that if we don't kill the seals, all the fish stocks will continue to decline and there will be no hope for recovery.

I want to make note of the fact that even the Magdalen Island sealers who were here in this room spoke to me in the hallway and admitted that seals had no role in the collapse of the cod fishery or the groundfish fisheries. Speak to fishermen. They will tell you what caused the collapse. It was mismanagement by the federal government.

I believe the people in this room have political careers that depend on scapegoating seals for fisheries mismanagement. For that reason, we're going to see in your report a lot of claims about seals negatively impacting fish stocks even though the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' own science shows that this is not the case.

I want to again talk very briefly about the humane aspects of the hunt, but to do that I would like leave from this room to show some footage. I think it's important, given that you have heard repeated claims that this footage is out of date or doctored or out of context. I'd like to explain some of the things that we see each and every year at the commercial seal hunt.

Is that okay, Mr. Chairman?

11:20 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy

You have four minutes, so the time is yours.

11:20 a.m.

Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

Rebecca Aldworth

This footage is from the 2005 commercial seal hunt in Canada. As you can see, sealers are not stopping to ensure that the animals are dead before moving on to the next one. That's a violation of marine mammal regulations. As you can see, this is not what we would call regulation killing. We are now in 2006, almost a year later, and no charges have been laid even though the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has had this footage for almost a year. As you can see, animals are clubbed to death in front of each other. They are often left, literally wounded, suffering, and choking on their own blood.

This seal was left for 90 minutes before the sealer finally finished him off by spiking him through the skull with the spike end of a hakapik. Those of you who know sealing know that this is not the way this implement is supposed to be used.

These animals are left wounded, conscious, and suffering on the ice floes. The argument that I hear from the Canadian government and from sealers themselves is that this is the 2% to 3% of any industry that operates incorrectly. All I can tell you is that I've filmed this hunt for eight years. This is every boat that I film and every sealer I follow across the ice floes, in every direction I look.

This hunt is completely unregulated. It happens from 70 miles offshore up to 150 miles offshore, in extreme weather conditions and on unstable ice floes. These sealers literally compete against each other for quotas. They're killing as many animals as quickly as they can. I want you to think about this. In Newfoundland, over 140,000 animals are normally killed in less than two days. When you think about the scale of that hunting and what kind of humane considerations are taken into account when working in these conditions....

I'm showing this to you—and it's not easy to watch—because it is not shown in Canada on our media. It is shown in the rest of the world, and that's why many nations are taking steps to shut down their trade in seal products. Around the world, these images have been shown on television stations, and they're not our images that are being shown. Media from all over the world have come up and filmed this hunt for themselves. More European parliamentarians have viewed this hunt firsthand than have Canadian members of Parliament, and that is a disgrace for Canada.

These images are real and they happen every single year at the commercial seal hunt, and it's a level of cruelty no thinking, compassionate human being, no Canadian, could ever accept if they saw it for themselves. I say that as somebody who grew up in Newfoundland. I say that every Newfoundlander I know would stand up and speak up against this if they knew it was happening on the ice floes.

I will close by thanking you for the opportunity to appear here today. I'm going to submit to you some information on the economics of the commercial seal hunt, and I hope we'll have an opportunity to discuss that during the questions and answers.

This is a hunt that doesn't need to occur. It accounts for less than 1% of the gross domestic product of Newfoundland and less than 3% of the commercial fishery. The people who do it in Newfoundland brought home, on average, under $1,500 each in 2005. This is an industry we could easily phase out and replace in a heartbeat if we chose to do it, and I hope you will do so.

As you know, this industry costs us far more than it's worth. An ongoing boycott of Canadian seafood products is beginning to impact the value of Canadian fish exports to the United States. In the 20 months since the boycott of Canadian seafood was launched in 2005, the value of Canadian snow crab exports to the United States has declined by over $330 million. While we are not claiming sole responsibility for that decline, we believe the seafood boycott is a significant factor.

At HSUS, we would love the opportunity to call off the boycott and work with the Canadian government to find viable solutions for the people in outports of Newfoundland and in the rest of the country who are involved in this commercial seal hunt. We can't do that until the federal government works with us to find an end and put a final end to killing seals in Canada commercially.

Thank you.

11:25 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy

Thank you, Ms. Aldworth.

For the record before we move on to Mr. Byrne as our first questioner, you've stated that all seals are killed this way, but the committee certainly has heard testimony time and time again from sealers that states that the seals are clubbed, checked for reflex, and bled out.

It's obvious that this particular case would be against the rules as they've been set out by DFO. But that doesn't mean all seals are killed like that, and out of 350,000 animals, that scene certainly looks as if it was outside the rules. But I don't think it says that all seals are killed in that manner. I just want to make that point.

Mr. Lavigne, you mentioned that there is no scientific evidence or support for a cull of harp seals, but there is no cull. We have to use the right nomenclature here. There is a hunt.

11:25 a.m.

Science Advisor, International Fund for Animal Welfare

Dr. David Lavigne

Can I respond to that?

It all depends on your definition of a cull. In some of the scientific literature, a purposeful management plan designed to reduce the size of the population is a cull. The current TAC is set above the sustainable yield. The only goal of that act would be to reduce the size of the population. In that sense it can be considered a cull, because the goal is to reduce the size of the population.

11:30 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy

The language, or the semantics, are interesting.

I'm going to move on to our first questioner. You go right ahead, sir.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

Thank you to both David and Rebecca for appearing before us. These are interesting and valuable perspectives that you offer.

I don't think this committee is as cynical as has been suggested. We are very open to facts. Actually, what we do is challenge facts.

Rebecca, you said that $1,500 is on average the value to the Newfoundland sealer from the seal hunt's commercial activities. You said it is not really a whole lot of money. Do you really believe that the $1,500 is not a lot of money to a Newfoundland sealer?

11:30 a.m.

Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

Rebecca Aldworth

I do believe it, because if you do the math, it's less than one-twentieth of their income. Of course, any money is money, and I'm not trying to trivialize income in rural communities in Newfoundland. I grew up in one.

That said, this is an industry that could be phased out through a licence retirement program by the federal government in a heartbeat, if it chose to do so. That would probably put more money into the pockets of the people participating.

And I have spoken to sealers. They are open to this idea. Sealers don't like going out there and killing seals either. It's a tough job, it's a dangerous job, and it's not fun work. We could find better solutions.

The seal hunt in the past five years has accounted for less than 3% of the landed value of the fishery. It's not the economic solution for poverty in outports. It never will be the economic solution.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

Has any organization come forward and suggested that they would replace that income? Obviously, various animal rights activist groups have been raising significant amounts of money basically to publicize their version of the seal hunt. Are you aware of any organization that has invested in joint venture operations in the Magdalen Islands or in Newfoundland and Labrador to create alternative industries—anything at all? If $1,500 is not a lot of money, that should be surrendered quite willingly.

I have the name of a sealer who suggested that if you were to provide him with a $1,500 cheque from your pocket, he might not go sealing.

11:30 a.m.

Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

Rebecca Aldworth

I'll write it today. As an individual, I'll write it today.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

I'll take the cheque. Would you present the cheque?

11:30 a.m.

Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

Rebecca Aldworth

Yes, I would write it from my own bank account today.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

Would the organization do more than that?

11:30 a.m.

Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

Rebecca Aldworth

You have raised a couple of things. I just want to address them one at a time.

For one thing, you asked whether organizations have invested in other economic opportunities in places such as the Magdalen Islands. I'm going to let Dr. Lavigne speak to that from IFAW's perspective, but the answer is absolutely yes. Some industries have been successfully developed; others have been turned down.

Organizations have stepped forward saying they would be willing to contribute to a licence retirement program; however, we cannot do so until the federal government wants to end the commercial seal hunt, because until you cap the licences and say you're not going to issue more licences, a licence retirement program will not mean an end of commercial sealing. What we may do is get rid of one generation of sealers and have an entire new demographic step into its place.

What we want to do is have a licence retirement program that the federal works with us on to implement, to end the commercial seal hunt. As you know, there are wealthy people all over the world who have been discussing this and discussing contributing the funds towards it.

That said, I do believe—

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

But they never do it, though, Rebecca. The interesting thing about it is that they never, ever do it.

11:30 a.m.

Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

Rebecca Aldworth

They can only do it with your cooperation.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

Why?

11:30 a.m.

Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

Rebecca Aldworth

Because unless you say we will not issue any more licences, what we're doing is essentially buying existing licences. You can turn around and issue another 5,000 tomorrow.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

That model doesn't follow the Greenland salmon fishery and the moratorium there. It doesn't follow any sort of model that has been established.

11:35 a.m.

Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

Rebecca Aldworth

There is a model. The model is the whale hunt in Canada. If you look back to the 1970s and the moratorium on commercial whaling—

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

Can I ask a question about the video you presented this morning? Obviously you have some pretty sophisticated videographers. What was interesting on those video clips is that you saw the hunting process, there was a break in the footage, and then all of a sudden you went to up-close scenes of individual seals. Why didn't you follow the sealer and keep with a constant videograph of the animal you were pinpointing?

It seems to me there's a certain amount of cynicism in Newfoundland and Labrador and on the Magdalen Islands, where people have been duped by people posing as videographers who were not actually there for the intended purposes. In fact, some atrocities were created by those who were creating the videos for the purpose of effect.

11:35 a.m.

Director, Canadian Wildlife Issues, Humane Society of the United States

Rebecca Aldworth

The only organization I know of that has ever been—