April 18, 2007 - Oak Island, Cumberland County:"Seal Deaths Questioned." Ex-sealer, DFO disagree on what led to pups dying of starvation...

Mar 01, 2007 - "Killing the Seals of Nova Scotia." The Animals Voice Magazine. "The major unexpected finding is that human fishing damaged not only the fish that were targeted directly, but also the ocean itself. This is a huge new insight. It is of global importance that ocean manages now "get" this, and that they react appropriately."

Feb 11, 2007 - Grey Seals of Fox Harbour The Grey Seal Conservation Society (GSCS) visits a whelping patch...

Feb 05, 2007 - Coming Soon: Grey Seal Hunt to be featured in next issue of The Animals Voice Magazine

Nov 10, 2006 - SHELBURNE — Sealers complain to committee...Nova Scotia’s core group of licensed seal hunters want to work but are seldom allowed, the Commons standing committee of fisheries and oceans was told here Thursday.

Nov 09, 2006 - Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans - Evidence - (...read more)

Nov 09, 2006 - The Grey Seal Conservation Society (GSCS) submitted brief to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans(...read more)

Oct 23, 2006 - Canada processes seals as fish instead of meat. This allows seal processors to avoid using infection control measures that are mandatory for processors of all other commercial meat products, measures that are designed to protect human consumers from contracting mammal diseases from meat, such as tuberculosis, brucellosis, rabies, trichinosis and others.

Oct 06, 2006 - The Grey Seal Conservation Society (GSCS) - a group battling the proposed grey seal hunt in Nova Scotia won the ear of some members of the provincial legislature’s standing committee on resources last week.(... read more)

Oct 03, 2006 - HANSARD - The Grey Seal Conservation Society (GSCS) and the NOVA SCOTIA HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY - COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES.

July 13, 2006 - Ocean life is dying back in unexpected ways: although there are fewer fish and other sea animals, more of them are starving, while waves of 'sickness' spread as primitive microbes gain the upper hand. Symptoms include spreading 'dead zones,' harmful algae blooms and a diminished presence of sea animal life in general. Is fishing implicated in all of this?

May 26, 2006 - You can become very sick from eating seal meat if the seal has an infection that can be spread to humans and the meat has not been well-cooked. (...more)

May 19, 2006 - Seal products (meat, oil, pelts) inherently carry a suite of potential infectious hazards to human consumers...

April 20, 2006 - Seal Products may pose human health risks because Canada processes seals under standards meant for producing "seafood and fish" rather than follow the meat hygiene rules...

March 29, 2006 - Seal Hunt defies Science, ecological irresponsible... A mass harvest of seals today carries a greater ecological risk to the ocean than it did when great hordes of large predatory fish shared the waters (cod, shark, halibut, etc.) and shared the seals' ecological role.

March 1, 2006 - "Gray" seal hunt short of quota...The annual seal hunt wrapped up at midnight with less than half of this years quota. (...more)

February 24, 2006 - Fisherman from Cape Breton face charges of harvesting grey seal pups in a wildlife sanctuary. They were encouraged by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

February 17, 2006 - This year the Department of Fisheries and Oceans harvest 2,100 grey seal pups. DFO's science branch recommended "caution" to any management activities applied to this group.(...more)

February 3, 2006 - An intense winter storm has killed 1,500 hundred grey seal pups on Pictou Island, located within the Northumberland Strait. For excerpted news articles. (...read more)

November 21, 2005 - DFO Seal Forum 2005 - Comments on the new Seal Hunt Plan: specifically, how ecosystem objectives should be incorporated into this plan, and also, a letter to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans asking him to elicit science advice on the wisdom of the current seal hunt from DFO's ecosystem scientists

August 23, 2005 -"URGENT" Please sign this petition and help save Francios Hugo's - "African Fur Seals." Also visit: Latest news from Francois Hugo (August 2005)

July 23, 2005 - The Grey Seal Conservation Society (GSCS) has recently developed an information brochure designed to encourage and promote the ecological wisdom behind protecting ocean predators. (...more)

March 18, 2005 - "Seal Hunt foes lose their clout" (...the following is an excerpted article from the Chronicle Herald) "The seal population is madly multiplying off Canada's east coast, with the resulting large increase in the annual cull. But as the fur flies on the ice flows, the size of the hunt protest is 'fast-fizzling'."

March 16, 2005 - "Cape Breton fishermen's seal hunt limited" Excepted editoral by Chris Hayes, Sydney - The first commercial grey seal hunt in Atlantic Canada got off to a slow start this winter. Clarrie MacKinnon, a consultant for the North of Smokey-Inverness South Fishermen's Association, estimated less than 500 grey seals were harvested...with comments from the Grey Seal Conservation Society (GSCS)

February 1, 2005 - Published in the Sou'Wester newspaper. Instead of "killing grey seals" the government has avoided "political suicide" and under the lobbying pressures from "animal welfare groups" has shelved the ACOA funding for Denny Morrow's "economic development" proposal...by not supporting the "Grey Seal Research and Development Societies" planned harvest of grey seals off Nova Scotia waters (...read more)

January 15, 2005 - A lack of ice in the Northumberland Strait this year has sent female seals ashore to find a place to give birth, with about 20 choosing Melmerby Beach near New Glasgow. Grey Seal Conservation Societies (GSCS) members recently visited this area (...more)

October 29, 2004 - Ottawa gives green light for first-ever N.S. grey seal harvest...
(Excerpts from news story by Brian Medel (BM), published in the Halifax Herald newspaper, October 29, 2004, with responses from the Grey Seal Conservation Society (GSCS))

July 8, 2004 - Kayakers discover 12 shot grey seals
Halifax Chronicle-Herald - Editorial by Jennifer Stewart - a tour group Kayaking in Prospect Bay near Bettys Island comes across a startling sight..."Unfortunately" these marine mammal's are the scapegoats for a failed fishery (...GSCS response)

Italy Adopts Resolution on East Coast Seal Hunt
April 28,2004 - The Committee for Foreign Affairs of the Italian Parliament has adopted a Resolution opposing the main arguments put forward by Canada's Dept of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) over the killing of 1 million seals. The Resolution argues that the DFO basis its justification on weak "scientific" findings. This Resolution could result in the Italian Government calling for a national ban on harp and hood seal products. Italy is a major importer of seal oil and seal pelts.

April 18, 2004 - The fate of sealing
Halifax Chronicle-Herald - Editorial calls for a rational debate on seal hunting, one devoid of "emotional" arguments. http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2004/04/18/fEditorial169.raw.html
(GSCS: "hand-wringing" arguments are not offered only by the seal hunt protesters camp...read our reply to the editor)

April 12, 2004 - Seal hunt begins
St. John's - A news item published by CBC announcing the beginning of the 2004 Canadian harp seal hunt includes this gem: "Ottawa says that culling seals helps replenish cod stocks."
http://stjohns.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=nl_seals041204

(GSCS) : Publicity like this threatens all seals, not only the harps, as this bit of simple nonsense is reinforced repeatedly in the public mind. "Ottawa" appears to be either not playing with a full deck or to be hiding a few cards up its sleeve, because relevant aspects of the troubled "cod stock" story include the facts that COD ARE STARVING and that ZOOPLANKTON IS DECLINING. These facts reveal the essential truth about what it will take to "replenish the cod stocks" (more food). And a destroyed seal herd is not the answer. In fact, killing the seals carries the distinct risk of worsening the real problem that is now limiting cod growth. No science has ever supported the statement that "culling seals helps replenish cod stocks." "Ottawa" is evidently comfortable in issuing lies to the media, takes the public for fools, and chooses not to be troubled by the finer details of the cod-seal-plankton story. Today's seal hunt story, which was also picked up by the BBC, quotes John Efford as the voice of "Ottawa." Efford is a former Newfoundland fisherman who is well known to carry extreme prejudice against seals. GSCS finds it incredible that John Efford now holds the postition of federal Minister of Natural Resources for Canada. He is dangerous. Efford appears neither to know nor to care about the intricacies of marine ecology. A sound bite from 1998, when Mr. Efford was addressing the Newfoundland legislature:
"I would like to see the six million seals, or whatever number is out there, killed and sold, or destroyed or burned. I do not care what happens to them...What (fishermen) want is the right to go out and kill the seals -- and the more they kill, the better I will love it." John Efford, at the time Minister of Fisheries for Newfoundland, now Minister of Natural Resources for Canada (his email: Efford.J@parl.gc.ca )

April 12, 2004, printed in the Toronto Globe and Mail http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040412.w2sealhunt0412/BNStory/National/ "...federal and provincial governments say the cull is vital for the local economy and good for replenishing depleted cod stocks...Greenpeace, which was traditionally been a vocal opponent to the hunt, is not campaigning against the cull this year. Instead the organization is focusing on issues like genetically modified foods and climate change. "I think that's partly because of some recognition on the impact on recovery of cod stocks and the importance the hunt has to fishing communities," Mr. McCurdy said. "But it (groups campaigning against the hunt) is probably something we'll always have to endure because people seem to be able to make a dollar from it." (GSCS: in which the fishing industry dismisses the position of the anti-seal hunt protesters on the grounds that they are "able to make a dollar from it." Brilliant.)

Feb. 25, 2004 - Group Calls for Huge Seal Harvest 
Halifax Chronicle-Herald - A fishing industry group proposes to kill half of the Nova Scotian grey seal herd.

Feb. 13, 2004      N.S. fish stocks not improving: report...
"HALIFAX (CP) - An advisory panel said Friday that inaction by the federal Fisheries Department has contributed to a ballooning population of seals which continue to do serious damage to fish stocks off Nova Scotia. The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council again called on Ottawa to allow a hunt of 5,000 grey seals a year for two years to give depleted groundfish stocks a chance to rebuild. It's estimated the population of the huge fish gobblers..."                                                    

Full story posted at: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/02/13/346673-cp.html

Jan. 14, 2003    Group warns of N.S. dwindling cod stocks...
"HALIFAX — Scientists are baffled by the disappearance of cod off eastern Nova Scotia despite a 10-year ban on harvesting the once-thriving species. The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, in its annual recommendations released Tuesday, said the cod biomass in 4VsW zone "may be in free-fall" and steps must be taken immediately to ensure its survival. "We owe it to the fish to do so," council chairman Fred Woodman said ...more research is needed to determine why cod continues to be on the decline off Nova Scotia despite the moratorium. But he believes the region's exploding seal population is at least partly to blame.Sable Island, a major breeding ground for grey seals in the North Atlantic, sits in zone 4VsW.
"It's really, really frustrating and mystifying, but we think that seal predation is the major problem in areas where stocks are not recovering," Woodman said in an interview...."I honestly think we are not good stewards of our resources."                                                 

Full story posted at: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1042581189290_37990389?s_name=&no_ads

(GSCS) note: look the cod in the eye, perhaps solve the mystery?