Spring hunt underway While seals are abundant, high wind and rough seas are making trouble for Northern Peninsula sealers
Sealers across the Great Northern Peninsula are well into the spring hunt.
Port au Choix harvester Clifford Dobbin was out on his 45-foot long-liner for 12 days, but with continuous rough weather, there were only four good days for sealing, he said.
He packed up his gear last Wednesday, with 850 seals, and is getting ready for the crab fishery.
“If the weather had cooperated we could’ve had a couple thousand seals,” Dobbin said. “But the weather was horrible, so we just called it off.”
While there were some seals in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Dobbin mainly hunted in the Strait of Belle Isle, where both the ice and seals were plentiful. Dobbin has been a sealer since 1978. He says the decline in the seal hunt is noticeable, with elderly seals much more common.
“I don’t remember any spring where we didn’t go sealing. Even when the market collapsed we were still out there,” Dobbin said. “But the price is not good anymore, and with the animal rights and everything keeping the markets down, there’s not so much interest.”
Sealer Dave Patey of St. Anthony Bight says the price could be better, but there are thousands of seals around this year.
“They’re plentiful,” said Patey. “We seen 18 seals on one pan. That’s something I’ve never seen before.”
But as with Dobbin, rough weather has been a major
obstacle for Patey. The April 9 snowstorm brought 43 cm of snow and 130 km/h winds to areas such as St. Anthony. Many boats have tied off along the Strait of Belle Isle in places like St. Anthony or Cook’s Harbour to wait out the high winds and rough seas.
Patey says he has caught 800 seals so far out of the four good days they’ve had, and plans to continue hunting until midmay, or until the ice clears from the 3K region.
“We’ll keep at it, so long as the ice is here and the seals are here why not,” he said. “We won’t switch over to the crab so long as ice is coming up over our crab grounds.”
On the eastern side of the Northern Peninsula, Conche sealer Paul Hunt has taken his speedboat to hunt along the Grey Islands. Hunt says there has not been much ice in that area and he had hoped there would be more.
Through his 10-mile travels from Conche to the Grey Islands, Hunt has so far caught about 300 seals, and plans to make a few more trips out there. While the seals are not as prominent as in the Belle Isle area, it still has been a decent year for the seal hunt, he says.
“Because we’re in a speedboat the first bit of ice we come across, we hang around it,” said Hunt. “So we don’t see the main body of them, but they say there’s a lot out there this year.”