Rock hard stance on seal hunt
Former Beatle Paul McCartney again calling for harvest to end
Former Beatles frontman Paul McCartney is spinning a tune again that a lot of people in this province will likely just tune out.
McCartney appeals for a stop to what he calls a “senseless slaughter” in a statement released Tuesday by Humane Society International. The group plans to document this year’s hunt on film, as it has for years.
“Their videos of the bloody seal slaughter provide the only vital evidence to demonstrate year after year that these seals are dying a horrible death for their fur,” McCartney said.
McCartney is almost as well known in this province for his 2006 debate with then premier Danny Williams on “Larry King Live” about the seal hunt as for his impressive song catalogue.
Inshore fisherman and sometime sealer Leo Seymour doesn’t mince words about his opinion on McCartney.
“It would just turn your God damn guts to listen to the likes of them talking,” Seymour says from his home in Harbour Round.
Anti-sealing campaigns have helped inspire bans on seal-- product imports in the European Union, the United States, Mexico and other countries.
But it isn’t animal-rights groups that Seymour blames for the erosion of the seal hunt.
“The government — the provincial government and the federal government — the sealing association and everything went right along with the animal rights. They tried to please the animalrights groups, that’s what they done,” he says.
The hunt opened Sunday on the Front off northeastern Newfoundland and southern Labrador, as well as in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
“It would just turn your God damn guts to listen to the likes of them talking.” Leo Seymour, Inshore fisherman and sometime sealer
It has dwindled in recent years, with fewer than 55,000 of a 400,000 quota landed. Hunters were urged to secure a buyer before heading out — something that will be difficult this year.
A main player in the sealskin market — Carino Processing — announced Tuesday it won’t buy any pelts this year due to a backlog of them from previous years.
“Based on our inventory levels we’re better served to focus on selling the goods that we have in stock and repaying existing debt rather than incurring any additional based on our forecast for this season,” company CEO Dion Dakins told The Telegram.
Just over five years ago, there was a quota of about 355,000 seals and five processing companies.
Dakins says there’s enough mothballed processing plants that could be revved up to deal with the 400,000 seal quota, but it won’t happen because there’s no market for them due to the bans that have been put in place.
“What we require is a concerted effort by the federal government to regain market access,” Dakins says.
As for McCartney, Dakins isn’t hearing much from him that reflects the humane hunt carried out for ecologically sound reasons that he believes in.
“Despite everything that Sir Paul and others may want to let the world believe, seals are anything but endangered,” he says.