THE Canadian government has rejected evidence suggesting that its annual harp
seal cull is unsustainable, and has set the same quota for 1999 as for the past
two years.
Seal hunters will be allowed to kill 275 000 animals this season. This is
well within the 鈥渞eplacement yield鈥� of 286 700 that a 1994 population census
suggested could be taken without causing a decline in population. 鈥淭he herd will
not be threatened by this year鈥檚 harvest,鈥� said David Anderson, the fisheries
and oceans minister.
However, research by David Lavigne, director of the International Marine
Mammal Association, reveals that when those animals that were shot but whose
bodies were not retrieved are taken into account, the number of seals killed in
each of the past two years is between 420 000 and 550 000. 鈥淭he government has
stated previously that its objective is a stable seal population,鈥� says Lavigne.
鈥淢y analysis is that it has not been achieving its objective for the past three
测别补谤蝉.鈥�
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John Harwood of Britain鈥檚 Sea Mammal Research Unit says the number of seals
鈥渟truck and lost鈥� has risen since restrictions on killing young were introduced
because older animals now make up a higher proportion of the catch鈥攁nd
they are more likely to be shot in the water.
Environmental groups maintain that the government should have erred on the
side of caution, particularly in the light of the collapse of stocks of cod and
other fish. But Gary Stenson, a scientist with the Department of Fisheries and
Oceans, says that new research from Greenland suggests the seal population would
sustain a cull significantly greater than the replacement yield.