RE: Minister Shea Announces 2009 Atlantic Seal Hunt

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From: Mom=*Family First*
To:
Date: Mar 21, 2009 11:33 PM
Subject: Minister Shea Announces 2009 Atlantic Seal Hunt


Minister Shea Announces the 2009 Management Measures for the Atlantic Seal Hunt

March 20, 2009

OTTAWA – The Honourable Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, today announced the total allowable catch (TAC) for the 2009 Atlantic seal hunt.


“Sealing is a significant source of income in many small, isolated coastal communities throughout Atlantic Canada, Quebec and the North,” said Minister Shea. “Our management decisions for the hunt take into account this fact as well as the advice of scientists to ensure the seal population is maintained.
”

The 2009 harp seal TAC has been set at 280,000, out of a herd of more than 5.5 million. This one-year TAC includes allocations of 2,000 seals for personal use, 5,040 seals for Aboriginal initiatives and a carry forward of 13,092 seals for those fleets that did not capture their quota from 2008. About 70% of the TAC is allocated to the Front (waters east of Newfoundland and Labrador). The Gulf of St. Lawrence receives about 30% of the TAC.


The hooded seal TAC has been set at 8,200 animals out of a herd of 600,000. The grey seal TAC for 2009 is 50,000 animals out of a herd of 300,000.


“Canada is a world leader in the management of the seal hunt. DFO’s Fishery Officers will be closely monitoring this year’s hunt to ensure compliance with the regulations and licence conditions, and they will take enforcement action when necessary,” said Minister Shea.


Surveillance is conducted through ongoing aerial patrols, cameras, sophisticated vessel monitoring systems, at-sea and dockside vessel inspections, regular inspections of processing facilities, and independent third party observers.


Minister Shea also repeated the Government of Canada’s commitment to defend Canada’s humane and sustainable seal hunt, and the livelihoods that depend on it, while on the international stage.


“Our government will continue to defend the rights of Canadian sealers to provide a livelihood for their families through our lawful, sustainable and humane hunt, said Shea. We are extremely disappointed that the European Parliament has called for a disruption of the trade of seal products and our position remains that any ban on a humanely conducted hunt, such as Canada’s, is completely without merit. We will continue to explore all legal and diplomatic options and Canadians can be assured that we will exercise our rights to their fullest extent under international trade laws if and when it becomes necessary and appropriate.
"

To learn more about the seal hunt, visit: http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/media/seal-phoque/seal-phoque-eng.htm.


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FOR MORE INFORMATION

Phil Jenkins
Media Relations
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Ottawa
613-990-7537



Ann Matejicka
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Ottawa
613-992-3474

Source


Saving Canada from Its Seal Hunt
by Mac Harb

Published Mar.
18, 2009

The majority of Canadians feel the costs of the commercial seal hunt, economic and otherwise, outweigh its meager benefits. It is time to transition Canadian sealers into sustainable, profitable industries. This is why I introduced Bill S-229, calling for an end to the commercial seal hunt while respecting treaty obligations and protecting the rights of Canada's Aboriginal People.


Canada's commercial seal hunt is a dying industry based primarily on demand for fur for luxury items. But markets around the world are closing to seal products and sealers' earnings have plummeted. The price of pelts has dropped from $62 in 2007 to $31 in 2008, and will be even lower in 2009. Pelts are stacked up in warehouses—50,000 in Newfoundland, 140,000 in Greenland. No seal furs were sold at international fur auction in Copenhagen in all of 2008, and no seal pelts sold at the January 2009 fur auction in North Bay, Ontario. Yet Canadian taxpayers will continue to support the commercial seal hunt—paying for icebreakers, providing rescue support when sealers run into difficulty, marketing seal products, and sending delegations abroad to defend the hunt and lobby foreign governments.


The commercial seal hunt has been supported to provide supplementary income for hard-hit communities in Canada's Atlantic region, but last year's $7-million hunt, divided among the 6,000 or so estimated active sealers, averages to about $1,100 each, before deducting their expenses. While not an insignificant sum, the risks and costs of the commercial hunt and its declining financial benefits render it useless as an economic lifeboat for sealers. And while the benefits are minimal, the costs are very high.


The commercial seal hunt is complicating and damaging Canada's reputation around the world. In my travels as a member of Parliament and now as a senator, I have repeatedly encountered consternation and disbelief at the continuing existence of this outdated hunt. The fact is the majority of people and governments around the world are opposed to the Canadian commercial seal hunt.


The United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Mexico and Panama have either banned seal product trade or have made moves to do so. These countries are home to 635 million people. The European Union will soon vote on a ban on trade in seal products. These international bans and widespread seafood and tourism boycotts are hurting the $1-billion East Coast fishery, causing significant damage to our tourism and trade sectors, and costing the Canadian economy millions in lost revenue. This is a serious matter as we struggle to cope with the current global economic crisis.


Canada's trading partners have been consistently voicing their concern about the commercial seal hunt for decades. The commercial hunting of infant whitecoat and blueback seals was banned in Canada in 1987 as a result of pressure from animal rights groups and bans beyond our borders. In 2005, Mexico's Chamber of Senators officially condemned the Canadian seal hunt.


Canada's largest trading partner, the United States, has been very clear about its position. After banning the hunt in 1972, the Americans have repeatedly called for an end to Canada's commercial seal hunt through Senate resolutions, a widespread U.S.-led seafood boycott targeting the Atlantic seafood industry, a unanimous resolution passed in 2007 by the U.S. House of Representatives and a soon-to-be-tabled Senate resolution that will once again call on the Canadian government to end the commercial seal hunt.


In 2008, total trade between Canada and the United States exceeded $650 billion. Significantly, Canada exports nearly two-thirds of its seafood to the U.S., producing $2.5 billion annually for the Canadian economy. To put this in perspective, Industry Canada statistics show the total value of sealskin exports from Newfoundland and Labrador in 2007 was about $8 million.


The European Union is Canada's second largest trading partner. In 2008, two-way trade in merchandise reached $90.1 billion. In January 2009, Canada's minister of international trade, Stockwell Day, travelled to Prague seeking support for a closer Canada-EU economic relationship. At that time, the minister stated: "There is no doubt that a closer economic partnership with the EU will help Canadian businesses thrive in this market, providing jobs at home and lowering the cost of consumer products imported from the EU. I'm in Prague to lay the groundwork for this revitalized and strengthened economic partnership. I am confident that we will be in a position to launch negotiations this spring.
"

But even as Minister Day was trying to build bridges with this important trading partner, another Canadian delegation was in Brussels, lobbying for the commercial seal hunt and threatening to go to the WTO for a challenge against the EU. When Minister Day launches trade negotiations this spring, the commercial seal hunt will open, observers will flock to the ice floes and the EU will vote on its ban on trade of seal products.


Every year, people from around the world come to Canada's East Coast, not to take advantage of the famous maritime hospitality or the stunning scenery or even the growing eco-tourism activities of whale and seal watching. No, they come to stand on ice floes and send reports back to their home countries. Provincial, territorial and the federal governments spend millions promoting our tourism sector abroad and a few amateur video clips ensure that money is wasted.


Canada's much-anticipated 2010 Winter Olympics are being targeted by animal rights groups as a platform to fight the commercial seal hunt. Attendance boycotts and photo ops will bring the attention of the world once again to the commercial seal hunt.


Canada has too much at stake, as a trading partner and tourist destination, to allow the damaging effects of the dying commercial seal hunt to continue to stain our reputation and impede our progress on the international scene.


The majority of Canadians do not support the commercial seal hunt. The people of our rural fishing communities deserve a more viable, profitable, long-term employment option. The 2009 Federal Budget established a $1-billion Community Adjustment Fund to help communities restructure. Resources and the will for change are now at hand to shift the economic focus of this region. We can take charge of this issue by putting an end to the commercial seal hunt. To do nothing, to refuse to even debate this issue, is quite frankly no longer an option.


Mac Harb is a Liberal senator.


Source




THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR TOO MANY YEARS! ENOUGH! DRUID M