Canada backs seal hunt despite market concerns

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Canada backs seal hunt despite market concerns

Updated Sat. Feb. 24 2007 2:57 PM ET

Canadian Press

MONCTON, N.B. -- Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn says
Canada will push back against negative messages about the annual
East Coast seal hunt, but it will not back down.

Some processors attending a New Brunswick fisheries meeting on
Saturday said they are worried they may lose customers because of
the controversy and protest surrounding the seal hunt.

Hearn said the Canadian government is working hard to counter
anti-sealing campaigns, with the message that the seal hunt is
humane and sustainable.

"We have to make sure that people who ask questions about the
hunt are aware of the truth and not what they see from some group
still going around showing 20-year-old video of sealers clubbing
whitecoats," Hearn told reporters during a break in the two-day
fisheries summit in Moncton, N.B.

"Some of these people say the herd is disappearing. When we had
the large northern cod stocks some years ago we only had two
million seals. We have one per cent of those cod stocks today and
we have six million seals.''

But some people in the Atlantic fishing industry are worried Canada
may be losing the public relations battle.

Crab processor Paul Boudreau of Tracadie, N.B., said in the last
four or five weeks processors have received inquiries from
customers asking for guarantees that they have nothing to do with
the annual seal hunt.

"In the past two weeks, I received two different inquiries and I had
to write letters to these customers saying that, no, our company,
McGraw Sea Food, is not involved in the hunt,'' Boudreau said.

"This is a serious problem from a Canadian point of view because
Newfoundland and Labrador companies are involved. This is
coming from the market, so we don't really know what the final
result will be.''

Opponents of the seal hunt in the United States have mounted
boycotts against Canadian seafood in restaurants across the
country. As well, they are continuing their efforts to encourage
countries to close their doors to seal products.

The European Union is being pressured to ban the products, but
has decided to first conduct an in-depth study of the seal hunt to
establish whether it is humane or not.

The British government said recently it will press its neighbours in
the European Union for a total ban on the import of seal products.

Hearn said Canada is joining with other sealing countries, including
Russia and Norway, to promote the hunt and seal products.

"So collectively we're doing push back,'' he said.

"We are getting out the information and we are encouraging people
to come and see for themselves and then make up their minds.''

However, people who do want to see the hunt for themselves may
have a more difficult time this year.

Hearn said he will decide soon whether to stiffen regulations for
hunt observers, possibly by increasing the exclusion zone around
sealers from 10 to 20 metres.

That wider zone will make it much more difficult for observers to
see what hunters are doing on the ice.

Hearn said he will announce the quota for this year's hunt within
the next few days. The hunt is expected to begin by late March.

Last year's quota was about 335,000 seals.

"There are concerns that we may be losing some of the seals,"
Hearn said, pointing to last year's poor ice conditions.

"If that's the case, we'll adjust the quota this year. If not, we're OK
where we are.''

More than 6,000 Atlantic Canadians -- most of them from Hearn's
home province of Newfoundland and Labrador -- were actively
involved in the hunt last year.