IF YOU thought that fox hunting, banned throughout Britain since last year, was beyond the bounds of acceptable behaviour towards animals, consider this: any day now Canadian hunters will start their annual slaughter of some 300,000 harp seal pups. Over the past three years, nearly a million seals have been clubbed and shot for their fur, with tens of thousands more 鈥� according to the Canadian government 鈥� left gravely wounded.
I have a long-standing involvement in animal welfare matters, but this issue stirs colleagues who care little about fox hunting or docking dogs鈥� tails. Like them, I am motivated primarily by my disgust over its brutality. It involves scenes of rapid-fire head-crushing, with all the inevitable botched attempts, and wounded pups being skinned while still alive. Given that the hunt contributes only around 5 per cent of the annual income of those who take part, it seems astonishing that it is still considered acceptable.
However, this is not why I am writing here. There is another pressing reason why the Canadian government should seriously consider ending the seal hunt, or at least reducing the hunt quotas: the effect of climate change on seal populations. This year, ice cover in the Gulf of St Lawrence and the waters north-east of Newfoundland 鈥� the two primary breeding sites for harp seals in the north-west Atlantic 鈥� is at its lowest extent since the 1960s. It is not clear whether this is because of long-term climate change or simply an exceptionally warm winter, but it is widely accepted that climate change will soon permanently reduce ice cover in the north-west Atlantic.
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How does this affect the seals? They need to be on ice when they give birth. Without ice, many pregnant seals abort in the water. If the ice melts before the newborn pups can swim properly, many of them drown. As the ice cover diminishes in coming years, this harp seal population will face a serious threat to its survival. The significance of such changes appears to be lost on the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), which has failed to take into account the impact of reduced ice cover when setting quotas for the seal hunt.
Now biologists are raising questions over how the DFO estimates the size and birth rate of the seal population. According to Stephen Harris at the University of Bristol in the UK, the model the DFO uses is full of uncertainty and could be putting the entire population at risk. For example, he points out that the DFO鈥檚 latest assessment of harp seal numbers contradicts its previous figures. In 2000, it estimated there were 5.2 million seals, and predicted this would decline in the years ahead as a result of the death toll from the commercial hunt. In the following years the hunt reached the quotas or even exceeded them, yet in 2004 the DFO鈥檚 population estimate had risen to 5.9 million seals. This may sound like good news for the seals, but it also means that the DFO鈥檚 calculations carry a large margin of error.
The scientists who calculated the 2004 estimates acknowledge the weaknesses in the model. Their calculations produce a lower bound of 4.6 million and a maximum of 7.2 million seals, but they admit that even these margins underestimate the uncertainties, since the model assumes the number of seals that die over the coming years will remain constant. 鈥淢ortality is an important component in the dynamics of any population,鈥� they concede. The scientists also point to climate change, including changes in the frequency of storms, as a possible influence on the mortality of seal pups, and call for independent studies on mortality rates to make their model more accurate.
Hunt supporters might argue that with the seal population at 5.9 million there is no immediate risk to its survival and it is safe to carry on hunting and monitor the situation year to year. This would be foolish. It takes 10 to 15 years for the long-term population effects of a season鈥檚 hunting to emerge, since seals do not reach breeding age until they are 5 or 6 years old. Make a mistake now and by the time it shows up it could be too late to do anything to correct it.
Despite the doubts over seal numbers and the failure to account for the possible effects of climate change, the hunt continues as before, with this year鈥檚 DFO quota at a near-record high of 325,000. Harris is one of many biologists warning that the existing quotas could pose a serious threat to the long-term survival of harp seals in the north-west Atlantic.
鈥淓xisting quotas pose a serious threat to the survival of harp seals in the North Atlantic鈥�
Countries around the world are calling on the Conservative Canadian government elected earlier this year to end the annual hunt on animal welfare grounds. They should look at it on conservation grounds too. It was after all the DFO that was responsible for managing the cod stock off Canada鈥檚 Atlantic coast, which famously collapsed in the early 1990s. It is not a track record that inspires a great deal of confidence.
