{Canada's Barbaric Harp Seal Slaughter Goes On. Rick.}
HALIFAX SUNDAY HERALD COLUMN - March 18, 2007
DOUBLESPEAK FROM THE MINISTRY OF DEATH
by
Silver Donald Cameron
The dogs frantic barking told George Garneau and Rebecca Baker that there
was something strange in their front yard in Thorburn one Sunday morning in
early March. It was a baby seal - and it was five kilometres from the nearest
salt water.
He must have dragged himself along his belly through fields, Garneau told the
Canadian Press. He had to pass through forest and roads.
What do you do with a baby seal in your front yard? Garneau and Baker called
the SPCA and other animal-welfare agencies, but couldnt reach anyone. So they
herded him into a portable dog kennel, drove him to the nearest beach, and set
him free.
He seemed fine, said Garneau. He was snarling and growling at us. When they
released him, the seal hot-footed it across the ice towards the open water.
This couple did everything right. They tried to find expert help - but failed,
because it was Sunday. They devised their own plan to help the seal, and
carried it out successfully. The next sound should be general applause.
But no. The next sound was scolding and threats from Peter Taylor, the
Department of Fisheries and Oceans area chief of conservation and protection
- an amazing title in an organization whose approach to conservation and
protection amounts to criminal negligence. Taylor said that the couple should
have let DFO take over.
Seals are protected under marine mammal regulations and so they are not to be
harrassed or harmed, said Taylor ominously. Fishery officers have laid
charges in the past.
Got that? Assisting a stranded seal is harassment under the marine mammal
regulations. For their compassion, Garneau and Baker are threatened with
charges.
The minor outrage is the bureaucratic idiocy of that reaction. The far deeper
outrage is that DFO officials have the bare-faced effrontery to talk as though
their regulations served the welfare of wildlife. This is Orwellian
double-speak. The objective of the Seal Protection Regulations has always been
to ensure the efficient slaughter of large numbers of seals. Look it up on
DFOs website. The regulations govern how many seals may be killed, and by what
means - not more than 245,000 baby harp seals in 1971, for instance, and not
with gaffs or small clubs, but with the wicked spiked clubs known as hakapiks.
To call this protection is to sin against the English language - but the
regulations moved on to sin against democracy and civil rights in 1977, when,
as the DFO site coyly puts it, In an effort to keep order and good management
on the ice, observer permits [were first] required by all who wish to view the
hunt. This innocent-sounding requirement was enacted primarily to ban
Greenpeace and Brigitte Bardot from the ice floes. Under these regulations, DFO
can require permits for anyone approaching seals on the ice - but it grants
those permits to sealers, and not to protesters.
DFOs true objective was to stifle legitimate democratic protest. Earlier,
Greenpeace had sprayed whitecoat seals with non-toxic green dye, making their
pelts worthless, and Bardot had drawn the worlds media to the ice, where they
had filmed the whole gory horror that is the seal hunt - infant seals with
their heads bashed in, blood spouting from their mouths and eyes; seals skinned
alive; adult seals watching from breathing holes while their young were clubbed
to death; streaks of blood like red driveways across the white ice where heaps
of pelts had been dragged to the sealing ships.
I watched the carnage at The Front one spring myself, on the ice floes north of
Newfoundland . It was the most nauseating thing I ever saw. And the result of
all that vivid media coverage was an international outcry which ultimately
ended the seal hunt - at least for a few years.
But the hunt resumed in the 1990s, and the regulations have become ever more
draconian. In 2005, Paul Watsons Sea Shepherd Society took a dozen observers
to the ice. When they attempted to film the slaughter, they were attacked by
the sealers, arrested by the RCMP, charged under the Seal Protection
Regulations, and fined $1000 each. Those who were not Canadian were barred from
re-entering the country.
Watson himself was fined $3000 and banned from the seal hunt for two years. If
he flouts the ban, he can be charged with criminal contempt, which allows the
judge to throw the book at him.
And thats because Watson and his ilk genuinely want to protect seals.
DFO is the Ministry of Death. Its despotic, fork-tongued regulations exist to
ensure that seals can be freely slaughtered without interference from
protesters who are legitimately appalled that this country should host the
worlds largest slaughter of marine wildlife. That the regulations should be
brandished at people like Garneau and Baker is contemptible. The very existence
of those regulations stains the democratic credentials of this nation.
Silver Donald Cameron is a columnist for the Halifax Sunday Herald and is also
the author of numerous books, most recently Sailing Away from Winter, an
account of his voyage from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas? His website address is:
www.silverdonaldcameron.ca
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