Protests greet start of seal hunt

GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE — Sealers took to the thawing ice floes off the Atlantic Ocean on the first day of Canada's contentious seal-pup hunt Saturday, sparking confrontations with animal-rights activists who say the annual cull is cruel.

Protesters had to dodge flying seal guts pitched at them by angry hunters as tempers flared on the first day of the spring leg of the world's largest seal slaughter.

Reporters and activists tried to get as close as permitted to the hunt on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Their presence angered sealers hunting for scarce animals on small, drifting ice pans.

At one point, a sealing vessel charged up to a small inflatable boat carrying protesters, and a fisherman flung seal intestines at the observers.

The fishermen in the isolated island communities of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador say the hunt supplements their meager winter incomes, particularly since cod stocks have dwindled dramatically during the past decade. They say the activists have little understanding of their centuries-old traditions.

The hunt brought $14.5 million in revenue last year, after some 325,000 harp-seal pups were slaughtered. Fishermen are able to sell their pelts, mostly for the fashion industry in Norway, Russia and China, as well as their blubber for oil.

The federal government maintains Canada's seal population is healthy and abundant, with a population of nearly 6 million in the Arctic north and maritime provinces.

Regulations require that sealers must quickly kill the seals with a pick or bullet to the brain. The pups also must be more than 2 to 3 weeks old and have shed their white, downy fur before being killed.

Activists, particularly the Humane Society of the United States and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, claim fishermen often skin the seals alive or leave some pups to die if they are not knocked unconscious.

The unseasonably mild temperatures in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have made the ice thin, and many of the harp-seal pups appear to have drowned, prompting protesters to call for the quota of 325,000 kills to be lowered to compensate for the natural deaths.

"Canada is being irresponsible by allowing so many seals to be killed," said Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society, who has observed the hunt for eight years.

Roger Simon, spokesman for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, disputed concerns about a high natural seal mortality this year.