Un maire veut qu'on contrôle les anti-chasse au phoque

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Canada: Mayor wants anti-hunt activists kept under control


Last updated at 8:32 AM on 13/04/07


The Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker George R. Pearkes came to the rescue of a number of stranded seal fishing boats off Fishing Point outside St. Anthony harbour on Wednesday. Some of the boats had been trapped in the massive floe since Monday and have since broken out of their icy trap. — Kristie Hurley Photo

Mayor wants anti-hunt activists kept under control

GARY KEAN
The Western Star

RIVER OF PONDS The mayor of this small Northern Peninsula town says it’s high time government did something about animal rights activists who come to the province to disrupt the annual seal hunt.

A standoff between hunt protesters and about 200 local residents, which began outside River of Ponds early Tuesday evening and didn’t end until Wednesday night, could easily have gotten ugly, said Mayor Eric Patey.

The protesters, with a helicopter, had set up camp just outside town. Patey said, besides the threat to the livelihoods of those involved in harvesting seals off the Northern Peninsula coast, there were concerns about the protesters buying fuel and using the chopper to store it somewhere in the backcountry.

“We still don’t know where they were storing it, but they were flying in over our watershed with the fuel,” noted Patey.

That was the proverbial straw which broke the camel’s back as a mob of people from the town decided to go confront the protesters around 6 p.m. Tuesday.

“We all knew what they were here for: they were here to disrupt the seal fishery,” said Patey. “So, we decided to go and disrupt their plans a bit.”

Turning the tables on the hunt protesters involved preventing their truck from moving. Things escalated into “heated discussions”, as Patey mildly put it.

“The RCMP showed up, but what’s the good of 25 or 30 RCMP if you’ve got 200 or 300 people going wild?” asked the mayor.

The local residents, most of whom were from River of Ponds — though there were others from neighbouring communities, stayed at the scene all night as the police kept vigil.

On Wednesday, the RCMP asked if the residents would permit the protesters’ helicopter to go get a load of fuel. That was agreed to, but there so many angry residents still on-site that the protesters were unable to get their fuel loaded onto the truck upon its return.

Things were at a standstill once again and teetering on getting further out of hand. Patey said, despite the large crowd of local people, many more likely would have showed up if the situation had escalated any further.

The residents, believing their message had been sent loud and clear to the hunt protesters, eventually broke up and went home and the protesters left the area.

Patey said situations like this should never have to happen. Unless government does something, he added, these incidents will continue to take place and, sooner or later, someone is going to get hurt. Part of that is to debunk persisting myths, such as the seal hunt still involves the slaughter of whitecoats, which has been banned for years.

As for the hunt itself, Patey said the protesters had been using the chopper to fly close to seals in attempts to scare the animals off the ice before sealers could arrive.

“I never seen people so arrogant in all my life to come in and think they can jeopardize someone else’s livelihood and do it in the brazen fashion that they do,” said Patey, noting that one of the protesters insulted the locals by calling them inbred.

“People are sick of what’s happening and, to be honest, I think we all should be sick of this. We’re wasting our own taxpayers’ dollars going around protecting these kind of people. As far as I’m concerned, it’s time for government to tell them they can come in here, but whatever they get themselves into, government is not going to be responsible for their safety. When you start messing with what people make a living at, there’s going to be a consequence to pay.”

Patey said people are disgusted with the amount of attention the seal hunt gets and wonders how much attention the loss of livelihoods will garner.

“If every person on the peninsula lost their job tomorrow, or if the peninsula broke away and started drifting off towards Quebec, I’m sure they wouldn’t be concerned enough to try and hook her up,” he said. “It’s time for government to put an end to this foolishness about people coming in doing this every year.”

The seal hunt in southern and northern parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence began last week. The hunt in the Front, an area off northeastern Newfoundland, is expected to open today.

About 70 per cent of this year’s total quota of 270,000 seals will be taken at the Front. The quota is down from last year’s total of 335,000, mainly due to poor ice conditions.

Animal rights groups are unlikely to be observing sealers on the Front because its remote location makes it difficult to reach.

The northern Gulf hunt has provided the only real opportunity this year for protesters to get visual images of the hunt since Ottawa banned observers during the opening days of the hunt in the southern Gulf.

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