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Grey Seal Conservation Society (GSCS) response:
In “the fate of sealing” the editor suggested
that “It would be helpful were both sides to enter into a debate guided
more by the facts and not solely by unrestrained emotion.” Implying that
“unrestrained emotion” types of arguments should be discounted, and that
only a cool assessment of the “facts” ought to be used in making decisions
on seal killing. “Factual” information is complete, unbiased and verifiable.
Two crucial “facts” have never been put on the seal hunt debating table.
Plankton production is falling in the
coastal waters of Atlantic Canada, and
fish are starving as a
result. Larger fish such as cod are now severely affected as adults by the
problem of food shortage, and this now threatens to drive their final
disappearance. These current realities about plankton and fish must be
included in any honest “rational debate” on sealing.
Another fact is that fish eaten by seals are not removed from the ocean, but
are processed quickly into a perfectly balanced plankton-stimulating
“waste.” But nature wastes nothing, and this relates to how the health of
fish is tightly linked to that of their natural predators. Cod need
seals, because seals have the potential to reduce 100 sickly starving cod
into maybe 10 healthy ones. We now witness a situation of evolving
ecological changes in the ocean, as interdependent marine species struggle
to maintain a balance that will allow the continued survival of all of them.
The speed of plankton growth is crucial, and marine mammals are possibly
nature’s fastest ocean recyclers. Therefore, more seals in the face of fewer
fish and falling plankton does make sense, because it tends to restore
balance in an interdependent plankton-based ocean economy.
Rather than making a rational decision after consideration of all relevant
“facts,” however, Canada responds to the “unrestrained emotional” refrain
from the fishing industry: “We must kill the exploding population of
voracious fish gobblers before they ruin our fishery!” The fishing
industry, the FRCC, and DFO issue this message repeatedly, having reached
their desired conclusion after consideration of only two facts: seal numbers
have increased recently, and seals eat fish. However, a significant plankton
decline has been clearly documented by DFO, as has been the “baffling”
starved condition of adult cod on the Scotian Shelf. These are very
important details. And these two additional “facts” offer a potent,
rational, and “unemotional” argument against killing more seals in Eastern
Canada.
Should plankton production rebound to levels enjoyed several decades ago,
even a very small number of healthy cod might stage a successful comeback.
However, if plankton production continues to decline (and removing seals
hastens this trend) the imminent disappearance of cod is guaranteed. The
loss of ocean plankton ought to be “the subject of intense hand-wringing”
today by all concerned, by DFO, the FRCC, the fishing industry and the
general public. But, as the editor has accurately observed, “old habits die
hard, as do misconceptions about the seal hunt…” For more information see
the website of the newly formed Grey Seal Conservation Society (GSCS) of
Nova Scotia:
www.greyseal.net
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