Namibian seal hunt to go on, 90,000 to be clubbe
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By MICHELLE THERIAULT, Michelle Theriault, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jul 6, 11.48 am ET
JOHANNESBURG – Namibia's annual commercial seal hunt will go on despite objections by animal welfare groups, a government official said Monday.
Frans Tsheehama of the Namibian fisheries and marine resources ministry said that the season started on July 1 and will run until Nov. 15.
Hunters are expected to club over 90,000 seals, including 85,000 pups.
The hunt was expected to begin last week, but there was confusion over whether the killings had begun after numerous media reports that a South African-based animal rights activist was in negotiations to halt them.
Namibia is one of only a few remaining countries with a commercial seal harvest. The government argues that the seal population needs to be controlled to protect fish stocks.
However, animal rights activists say the practice is inhumane and outdated.
Seals are hunted for skins, fur and meat, and seal genitals are sold as traditional medicines and aphrodisiacs in Asia.
Activist Francois Hugo of Seal Alert South Africa said last week that he had made a bid to buy out the company that purchases the Namibian seal pelts, effectively halting the hunt.
Hugo said that clubbing an animal to death is cruel, criminal and in defiance of international animal protection laws.
He also challenged the Namibian government's claim that the hunt maintained healthy seal populations, saying that in the past whole colonies had been devastated.
Namibia's seals number about 850,000 and live on a dozen remote, rocky islands off the coast of the sparsely populated southern African country.
The hunt takes place under clandestine circumstances to avoid the glare of publicity — and to avoid upsetting tourists.
The government has said seals consume 900,000 tons of fish each year, more than a third of the fishing industry's catch, and that the cull is needed to protect fisheries. Animal welfare groups counter that most of the seals killed are still-nursing pups.
AJ Cady of the International Fund for Animal Welfare said that the industry is "collapsing" worldwide, citing a recent European Union ban on the import of seal products combined with the global economic downturn. In this year's Canadian harvest, sealers killed less than a third of their quota on weak demand.
"The great question here is who is really buying these things?" Cady said. "The cruelty is so obvious."
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Namibians clubbing seals.
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Cape Fur Seal Arctocephalus pusillus
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Cape Seal fur products
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Namibian Cape Fur Seal Hunt
This year is the third year that the Namibian government has authorized the slaughter of 85,000 cape fur seal pups and 6,000 cape fur seal bulls.
The Cape fur seals are rounded up on Namibian beaches and slaughtered over a period of 20 weeks, starting in July. The pups are still nursing when they are clubbed or stabbed to death.
If all these seals are killed, this slaughter will be larger than the Canadian harp seal 'hunt' this year, which resulted in the deaths of about 60,000 harp seal pups (much lower than the quota, due to the European Union ban on all seal product imports, which reduced demand).
However, this year, after the EU ban and stockpiling of 20,000 unsold seal skins, the Australian buyer of cape fur seal skins, Hatem Yavuz, has offered the Cape fur seals' major advocate, Francois Hugo of Seal Alert-SA the opportunity to buy him out over the next decade, at a price of US$14 million, thus preventing the slaughter of Cape fur seals for this span of time.
This offer, which Francois refers to as "blackmail", is due to expire on the 7th of July. The killing of seals is being postponed as Francois attempts to raise this "ransom."
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Pair convicted in Namibia for filming seal hunt
AFP - Fri Jul 17, 3:13 pm ET
WINDHOEK (AFP) – Two European journalists were fined on Friday by a court in Namibia for filming the annual seal hunt along the coast of the southern African nation, their lawyer said.
British investigative journalist Jim Wilckens and South African cameraman Bart Smithers were found guilty of violating the Marine Resources Act by entering a restricted area without permission, lawyer Raywood Rukoro said.
Both were released after paying a fine of 5,000 dollars (625 US dollars) each, he said, adding that they intended to leave Namibia soon, even though they are not being deported.
"We are happy this is over and we will leave as soon as possible," Wilckens told reporters afterwards.
The duo was arrested by police whilst documenting the Namibian seal cull. They were kept at police cells at Henties Bay, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the capital Windhoek.
Wilckens, a reporter with the British-based Eco-Storm agency, and Smithers were working with the Dutch non-governmental organisation Bont Voor Dieren.
Andrew Wasley, co-director of Eco-Storm, alleged that the two had been beaten up by workers involved in the cull.
"One of the two reporters laid a charge of physical assault, but no one has been arrested yet", a police officer told AFP.
The annual commercial seal harvesting season opened on July 1 with a quota of 85,000 pups due to be clubbed and killed for their fur on the Namibian coast.
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Namibia seal slaughter goes ahead after failed deal
AFP
ISTANBUL (AFP) – An Australian-based fur company has begun culling baby seals in Namibia after animal rights activists failed to pay on time the millions of dollars they pledged to buy the company out, the owner said Friday.
"Nothing came from these associations and we have begun the annual slaughter," Hatem Yavuz -- who has offices both in Sydney and Istanbul in his native Turkey -- told AFP.
Earlier this month, animal rights activists announced that they had launched a campaign to raise 14.2 million US dollars (9.9 million euros) to buy out Yavuz's company which buys the pelts.
Yavuz said that he had been ready to go along with the offer -- made by several associations, including Seal Alert South Africa and Humane Society International -- but said he now felt they had been dishonest.
"I told them 'You want to buy me out, buy me out'. Today, there is nothing on the table. They kept the money in their pocket," he said.
The culling began "about a week ago," after a two-week delay, Yavuz added.
The annual commercial seal harvesting season in Namibia officially began on July 1 with a quota of 85,000 pups due to be clubbed to death and 6000 bulls to be shot on the country's coast.
In May this year, the European Union banned imports and exports of all seal products in their 27 member states, including transporting these products through the EU to other parts of the world.
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Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
Cape Fur Seal Arctocephalus pusillus
That's so cute...I dunno why poachers will have that heart to cull them....
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Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
Namibians clubbing seals.
Urgh! ....