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Loading...Slaughtering Seals As a Precautionary Approach
The fishing waters off Newfoundland and Laborador are some of the most closely watched in the world. On every community’s mind is the question: When will the fish come back? They watch the seals grow fat, their bank accounts grow lean and they want action. They want the seals to go.
Now that finally may happen. The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (FRCC) has just released a report entitled Towards Recovered and Sustainable Groundfish Fisheries in Eastern Canada. Though overfishing crashed the population of groundfish such as cod, haddock and flounder, the seals will pay.
To come up with their recommendations, the Council talked with industry, biologists, fishers and Aboriginal communities. Two things nearly everyone agreed on: Fisheries and Oceans Canada is taking too long to complete the Sustainable Fisheries Framework they hope will put the fishing industry back on its boats, and seals are eating the fish.
So the report calls on the government to complete its work and to become a whole lot better about working with the industry. One red flag is a warning “that the top-down, prescriptive nature of the Species at Risk Act will largely remove industry from participation in management of the resource, and will counter initiatives towards stewardship and co-management.”
The same warning appears any time an industry objects to government regulation of a resource. In this case, the Species at Risk Act is one small, government voice for endangered wildlife. The fishing industry’s earlier record with stewardship and co-management nearly wiped out the groundfish. If the fish are ever to recover, they need non-industry voices guarding their interests.
Read more: cod, fishing, groundfish, overfishing, predators, seals
Photo from Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel, Second Photo from Sam Beebe, Third Photo from bikehikedive (nugun) via Flickr Creative Commons
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Recent Comments from Causes
Will he be back for the next course?
What a terrifying way for this poor creature to die. More could have and should have been done. Once…
Well, Trillian, you know how these Earthings are.
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153 comments
+ add your ownDrastic reduction in Human Overpopulation is the only answer to this ecological ,conservational and environmental collapse.
We are living much, much longer and we breed much,much more. Plus, the mortality rates are lower.Human population is increasing now at exponential rates, world population has doubled since 1970.
The seals used to be controlled by the orcas (killer whales). We put the killer whales in Zoos. The seal population exploded here on the Pacific...parasites exploded in the bottom fish...parasites moving through the food chain. Over fishing of herring for the roe. So called excess roe that broke loose and ended up high on the beach, rotted, and with each high tide went back to sea as fertilizer, caused the seaweeds to flourish...hidey holes for juvenile fishes and returning adult salmon. Now we have a salmon problem, fewer and stunted seaweeds and the seal invading the tidal part of the rivers with impunity and the salmon in trouble, herring in trouble, orcas in trouble, seaweeds in trouble, and damn if I'll eat sushi again. It's kind of freaky finding a fish tapeworm hanging out your ass about a foot after your morning constitutinal!
I am out of words. So how it was going for centuries when there were more seals and the fishes did not perished? How all the species used to survive one next to the other? May be because ther were less humans on this crowdy earth.
My question, or one of them anyway, is why isn't there more publicity on this type of horrible, unecessary massacre? Seals slaughtered, dolphins murdered, horses cruelly rounded up & put into horrific "holding facilities", wolves & pups being shot and/or gassed, and most of this conducted by our federal government, with the apparent approval of our President! Why isn't the public irate over these horrible, cruel acts? They aren't being committed by one or two people, but acts committed regularly with the full approval of, or by, government officials. Has humanity reached it's lowest level? I can't even imagine how things can get much worse.
~Horrendous!!!~How about a mass roundup of the nuts who think this is an answer to the issue!!?~
How do you stop over fishing?
What happens when they kill all the seals? Will they then realise it was humans who depleted the fish stock? Who put these idiots in charge who blamed the seals in the first place?
Once the huge trawlers started fishing it was game over for the cod. The stupid argument of blaming the cod levels crashing on the seals is beyond common sense. So please sign petitions and make phone calls! What ever we have to do to stop them from killing 70% of the seals in Eastern Canada.
Murdering seals is what the Canadian Government wants, is known for, and pines for when they are curbed by world opinion and trade barriers. It is the draggers with nets big enough to haul in airplaines which destroyed the stocks. Seals clean up much in the sea that we want cleaned up. Of course the Canadian Government is also clueless as to the fact that seals have as much right to life on Earth as we do. And remember folks... seals are more than 99& genetically identical to domesticated cats! I bet even DFO and other FRCC members have pet cats they would not kill.
Who will humans blame when all the seals AND fish are gone?
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