Oh, how I wish
I could declare Province House a protected wilderness. How else to
preserve that rare and forever-endangered flower, political common
sense. Now that the NDP juggernaut has swept into office, political
common sense may be trampled into extinction. Consider, for example,
last week’s verbal gyrations performed by our new environment minister.
Sterling Belliveau was trying to justify changes to the Wilderness
Areas Protection Act allowing the slaughter of seals in a protected
area.
Being an NDP environment minister, you’d think Belliveau would have
fought tooth and nail to preserve the sanctity of every square inch of
protected wilderness. After all, the New Democrats won recent praise
from activists when they promised to spend $81 million this year to buy
up privately owned land to protect as wilderness. (Only about nine
percent of the province is protected wilderness now, but the government
has pledged to work toward a target of 12 percent by 2015.)
But then, incredibly, there was Belliveau giving himself the power
to allow the slaughter of grey seals in the protected wilderness of Hay
Island off northeastern Cape Breton. He actually told the legislature
(I’m not making this up) that his new law will “strike a balance
between economic and environmental interests.”
OK. Let’s see now. The seal pups that are the target of the
slaughter are wild, right? And, they’re in a protected wilderness,
right? And the reason we have protected wilderness areas is to protect
the wild plants and animals within them, right? In the words of the
law, wilderness areas “protect representative examples of natural
landscapes and ecosystems.” So Sterling, why do we suddenly need “to
strike a balance between economic and environmental interests” in a
protected wilderness?
In the legislature, Belliveau resorted to a stunning barrage of
non-commonsensical gobbledygook to justify the slaughter. He began by
noting that the Tories allowed a “seal harvest” on Hay Island for the
past two years. (They got around the law by claiming a seal slaughter
would preserve the island’s biodiversity, presumably by saving fish
that seals eat.)
Here is what Belliveau told the legislature (again, I’m not making
this up): “While studies to assess the benefit of this harvest to the
island biodiversity have been inconclusive and there is no evidence to
suggest that there has been any harm done to the island because of
these seal harvests, and since we have this information, our objective
with this amendment is to make the process for allowing the Department
of Fisheries and Oceans seal harvest on Hay Island more
straightforward.”
Huh?
Belliveau performed this verbal two-step while glossing over a
striking conflict of interest. Yes, our environment minister is also
minister of fisheries, a department that desperately wants us to blame
seals for the continued decline of cod stocks wiped out by decades of
overfishing. Trouble is, there are no credible scientific studies to
show that seals eat enough cod to make a crucial difference. For
example, a 2006 study from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography says
there’s little evidence that seals are mainly to blame for the
continued decline of the stocks. The study emphasizes there is much
scientific uncertainty, adding that grey seals do eat cod, but cod are
only a small part of their diet. It concludes that while grey seals
contribute to a decline in the cod stocks, even killing all of them
“would not assure the recovery of the cod population.”
No matter. Belliveau can now authorize the slaughter of seals in a
wilderness area. The record shows that NDP MLAs voted en masse to give
him this power, except for Howard Epstein, who didn’t vote at all. I’d
say the environmentally savvy Epstein would have been a much better
choice as environment minister than the hopelessly conflicted
Belliveau. But, then again, appointing Epstein would have made
political common sense-—and, around Province House these days,
common sense seems to be going the way of the cod.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2009.
You know Mr Wark, once and awhile you make sense. What a crap move on the part of the NDP.
Why did I think things were going to be different with them in power?
How much do you want to bet that any or all of the wilderness areas that “we” buy up over the years will be sold back to this developer or that developer (at a loss) when the lands have developed some value via real estate or newly discovered natural resources?
This is great.
Finally we can have some hunters safely on land. If the seals were threatened as a species, if there weren’t 5 million plus of them I would be concerned & would be for protecting the species. But that isn’t the case. Down home in Northern Cape Breton & Newfoundland I grew up with the hunt. It brought in money,some people hunted, others brokered hides or tanned & treated them, people made seal skin products, moccasins, mittens & key chains, little seal souviners out of small scraps that were sold in stores, motels, garages etc. during our brief summer tourist season. But now your looked at as worse than a child molester because you want to continue a traditional practice…that isn’t even endangering the animals ! ! !
Go back to your bloody crowded cities & tell each other how great you are while polluting the air & water so badly, you need to “Treat it” & then find some place in the country side to dump the toxic shit you’ve created with your treatment system…better yet, maybe we can incorperate it into all the latte’s & mocha’s & other preppy drinks you assholes spend way to much money on !
You really want to solve a problem solve that one .
Time and time again epstein consistently reveals himself as the jackass he is. Kudos to Premier Dexter for keeping a muzzle on that dogmatic obstructionist and standing up for what is right for Nova Scotia. Animals don’t grow old in the wild, they’re killed by predators or they’re killed by hunger. Seals breed like rabbits and if they are not culled (through natural predation or by man) their voracious appetites (10-18 lbs per/day) will quickly decimate an ecosystem resulting in their own starvation. Your cod argument is superfluous; the seals may as well be eating red herrings. Perhaps you should spend some time thinking critically instead of wasting space with rhetoric.
Thank you for this excellent article, Mr. Wark. I attended the so-called public consultations on this Bill and they were a complete sham. Committee members showed a profound disinterest in the public presentations – they chatted, left the room (some never to return, MLAs constantly walked in and spoke with Committee members, disrupting proceedings. MLAs were even heard in the hallway joking about having to make it look democratic by pretending to listen to us. No sooner had the last speaker finished when the Committee was voting to send Bill 50 back to the House for third reading. Clearly, the decision had already been made and the Committee was simply humouring us with the “public consultation” period. I spoke with my MLA Graham Steele yesterday regarding my concerns with Bill 50 and the process in general and his response was that it would be a waste of time for us to discuss it, since it was government policy and he has to follow it. I found this a spectacularly unhelpful attitude from an MLA who should be sympathetic to the concerns of his constituents.
To The Right Choice — “standing up for what is right for Nova Scotia”? How is allowing commercial industry into protected space to decimate the flora and fauna “right for Nova Scotia”? Those land belong to all Nova Scotians and should be protected rather than violated by commercial industry. What is right for Nova Scotia is to keep our protected lands PROTECTED, not to open them up to the highest bidder. Sealers have access to and kill grey seals on many small islands in this province – there is no need for them to access the seals on Hay Island. Your suggestion that this is a cull to protect the ecosystem is rubbish – if this were a cull, pup-bearing females would be the target, not pups of just a few weeks old. The pups killed on Hay Island for the past two years are 4 – 8 weeks old, barely finished moulting. Your belief that decimating the seal population on Hay Island will benefit the ecosystem is naive at best. You should take your own advice and spend your time more productively than spouting misinformation and rhetoric.
Sterling Belliveau is in a conflict of interest holding both Environment and Fisheries portfolio. These two have constantly been at odds and to award both portfolios to one person – and a former fisherman at that! – is incredibly corrupt politics. The NDP government is no different from liberals and conservatives. Rotten to the core and selling the rest of us out in order to grab the fishers votes.
Stop and think… maybe nobody listens to you because your argument doesn’t have any bearing in reality. Boo hoo seals are furry, so are feral dogs and cats but you aren’t camped in Burnside whining about them being euthanized. Seals have to eat and they eat EVERYTHING from molluscs to birds to a variety of fish. Culling a few seals off Hay Island doesn’t decimate the 5.6 million seal herd off our coast. Do the math 5.6 million seals multiplied by the 14 lbs they consume per day equals 78.4 million lbs of prey consumed off our coast per/day! You can’t argue facts. You should do some research before tossing your flimsy accusations about.
Looks like it’s business as usual in Nova Scotia with this government. Does anyone really think that Sterling Belliveau is any different from Ronnie Chisholm? Thanks Bruce, for reminding us that at the end of the day, this is still Nova Scotia.
The Right Choice, this is not a debate about whether or not to allow the seal hunt to continue, it’s about whether to allow it to happen in a supposedly Protected Wilderness area. If land is designated as ‘Protected’, one would think that protection would extend to not having a commercial industry trampling though it to hunt the animals that live there. Supporting a responsible hunt is one thing, but supporting the misuse of Protected Wilderness areas is quite another.
“The seal pups that are the target of the slaughter are wild, right?” Perhaps try to be a little less biased next time. Seal hunters target pups? Come on now, is PETA a Coast sponsor now, paying you to write this slander?
First this, and now Dexter himself has decreed that clear-cutting is “green”. Um, what?!?: http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/11529…
What the hell is going on? It’s like we elected an orange government from a parallel universe! Either that, or we got played.
NL’s Greatest Export asks rhetorically, “Seal hunters target pups?” Then suggests I’m biased and asks if PETA is now paying The Coast “to write this slander.”
Sorry to rain on your disinformation parade pal, but you know damn well that seal pups are the target of the hunt. On its FAQ page about sealing, DFO says:
“Seals cannot be legally hunted until they have moulted their first coats and are living independently from their mothers. Seals are not usually hunted until they reach the “beater” stage of development at around 25 days old.”
In answer to the question, “why do hunters target young animals?” DFO responds:
“Young harp seals between approximately 3-4 weeks and one year of age are called beaters – so named because they tend to slap the water when they swim. Beater seals provide the most valuable pelts and market conditions are stronger for this type of pelt.”
Although DFO does not refer in this answer to grey seals specifically, there is ample evidence that young grey seals are the target of the organized slaughter too. On Feb. 11/09, for example, the Cape Breton Post quoted Robert Courtney, president of the North of Smokey Fishermen’s Association about the hunt on Hay Island. Courtney complained that there was no buyer for the pelts because the Northeast Sealers Cooperative was renovating its plant in Newfoundland. He added therefore, that prospects for the hunt were not good. The Post went on to give Courtney’s reason why:
“The grey seal pups will be off the rocks and into the water where they can’t be hunted within two weeks, he said.”
Further down in its story, the Post reports that last year humane society activists filmed “the harvest of grey seal pups” on Hay Island.
Finally, the Canadian branch of the International Humane Society puts it this way:
“…97 percent of the seals killed in the commercial seal hunt over the past three years have been younger than 3 months, and most were younger than 1 month old. At the time of slaughter, many of these pups had not yet eaten their first solid meal or taken their first swim. Sealers prefer to kill the baby seals because their skins are in “prime” condition and fetch the highest prices.”
Canada sends troops to democratize other countries and to be present at public hearings in countries such as Afghanistan in order to ensure democracy . It has been obvious that the Canadian Parliament is in a bad need of revamping, maybe by having some foreign troops guiding each and every public hearing would be a start?
If the area is protected, nobody should be able to beat the seals to death. Protected, means protected!! LEAVE THE SEALS ALONE
LEt us not forget..sealers hunt seals on the BEACH ! not in the woods or fields, so the “flora” is quite safe. After a couple of tides come & go, there will be little to no sign of anyone being there. Also by crushing the skulls of the seals with a club, the sealers are not disturbing any other wild life on the island, with repeated gunfire…now isn’t that considerate of them ?
I believe it is ~:)
“”For example, a 2006 study from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography says there’s little evidence that seals are mainly to blame for the continued decline of the stocks””
Indeed they may not be “MAINLY” to blame. So what? I expect that overfishing is the MAIN cause. This seems a bit “weasle-wordish” to me, sorry.
I could just as truthfully say that car emmisions alone are not MAINLY to blame for the greenhouse effect. Again, so what?
There IS such a thing as a “biomass constant” as worked out at BIO as well, by Ray Sheldon, that reasons that indeed, if large “steak cod” are reduced in number, (and mass) as they have been, something will take their place in the food chain. And it ain’t gonna be Albatross…
Would you care to put a marine biologist on record as saying that the seal hunt/cull is a BAD idea, based on science alone? Please don’t use the BIO to promote your anti-seal hunt agenda, without backing it up.
“”It concludes that while grey seals contribute to a decline in the cod stocks, even killing all of them “would not assure the recovery of the cod population.””
No, probably not. And taking every polluting, smoky car of the roads in eastern Canada
would not “assure” the recovery of our atmosphere either.
So?