Seal Hunt in Canada Opens on Thin Ice

Scott Norris
for National Geographic News

March 24, 2006

Seal hunters and animal-rights activists may both be treading on thin
ice this weekend, as Canada's annual harp seal hunt gets underway.

Shrinking sea ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in southeastern Canada (map) is adding a new twist to the controversial commercial seal harvest.

Ice floes are sparser and thinner than normal this year in the waters north of Prince Edward Island, where hundreds of thousands of harp seals congregate each year to give birth to their pups.

As a result, hunters may be forced to pursue their quarry in the water as well as on ice.

In addition, protest groups planning to land helicopters on the ice to film the slaughter may have to change their tactics.

Some scientists fear the seals may face food shortages because of the poor ice, and young may be forced into the water before they are capable of prolonged ocean swimming.

Critics of the world's largest marine-mammal hunt had been calling for a reduced kill quota this year due to the warm winter conditions.

They were disturbed by the Canadian government's announcement last week that 325,000 harp seals could be killed—one of the highest totals ever.

In 1987 decades of protest culminated in a ban on the clubbing of white-furred harp seal pups in Canada. Now the protests are picking up steam again.

About a million harp seals have been killed over the past three years, mostly animals between 25 days and 13 months of age.

Although the youngest pups are protected, harp seals are weaned and lose their white coats when only two weeks old, making them fair game for hunters.

Ancient Tradition, Modern Politics

Native and European hunters have been pursuing seals along Canada's Atlantic coast for centuries.

In this year's hunt a special allocation of 10,000 seals was made for aboriginal hunters in the far north.

Some native groups fear the repercussions of a renewed backlash against the harp seal harvest. Inuits in the Canadian Arctic hunt mainly ringed seals, but some communities were hard-hit by a European import ban on harp seal products imposed in 1983.

The commercial hunt today is largely carried out by fishers in Newfoundland and Quebec (map).

Backers of the hunt say it brings vital income to coastal communities devastated by the collapse of the Atlantic cod fishery in the 1990s. Last year's harvest of 320,000 harp seals generated about 16.5 million Canadian dollars.

Although the government acknowledges that the cod fishery collapse was largely due to mismanagement, many Newfoundlanders blame the seals, which eat cod, and want the herd size reduced.

David Lavigne, science advisor to the nonprofit International Fund for Animal Welfare, says the allowable harp seal catch is set beyond sustainable levels as a result of Newfoundland politics.

"Canada's commercial seal hunt is currently a cull, consciously designed to reduce the size of the population from one year to the next," Lavigne said.

A New Variable: Climate Change

The Canadian government estimates the total harp seal population to be over five million and says the hunt is sustainable at current levels.

But some scientists say a series of light ice years, beginning in 1996, may be having an impact that is not detected by government studies.

Lavigne, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, says that although the ice has been poor in 7 of the last 11 years, wildlife managers have failed to address the effects of a changing and unpredictable environment on the harp seal population.

"The government model might take a number of years to actually detect a population decline," Lavigne said. "It's a very risky approach."

About a third of the Atlantic harp seal population spends the winter in the Gulf of St. Lawrence region. The rest winters farther north, off the coast of Newfoundland, where the hunt will shift to mid-April.

Duke University biologist Ari Friedlaender says ice cover is highly variable in both regions, and it has been decreasing in critical areas.

"The places where sea-ice cover tends to be reduced the most are where the big pupping areas are," Friedlaender said.

"There is evidence that in light ice years, there is an increase in mortality of young pups."

Other seal species in the region have already suffered from this year's ice shortage.

South of Prince Edward Island (map), about 1,500 young gray seals were killed last month when a tidal surge swept across a small island where their mothers were forced to give birth due to a lack of sea ice.

Initially researchers feared there might not be sufficient ice this year for the southern harp seal population to use.

Although that worst-case scenario did not occur, ice coverage has been thin, and floes are already drifting east out to sea between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

"Thin ice is unstable and susceptible to wave action," said Garry Stenson, a marine-mammal researcher with Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans in St. John's, Newfoundland.

"There can be high mortality if animals get dumped in the water."

Stenson says he and other government scientists are taking the changing ice conditions into account when estimating the size of the population and the impacts of the hunt.

"Climate-change models suggest there will be less ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and more storms. That would be detrimental to the southern populations," Stenson said.

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