Bad spring for seals

May 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2002:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland–Northeastern Newfoundland sealers
in mid-April 2002 reported their most profitable seal hunt in
decades, while sealers from the west of Newfoundland, the Magdalen
Islands, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Labrador were
all but excluded from the killing.
Ice failed to form over much of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
and melted early where it did form, drowning thousands of newborn
harp seals whose remains washed ashore in western Newfoundland.

The Pope is asked to help save sea turtles

April 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2002:

LOS ANGELES, HONG KONG –The Sea Turtle Conservation Network
of the Californias on March 13, 2002 appealed to Pope John Paul II
to clarify to Roman Catholics that sea turtles are not “fish,” and
should not be poached and eaten at Lent.
Mexican poachers alone kill as many as 5,000 endangered sea
turtles a year during Lent, Wildcoast founder Serge Dedina said at a
Los Angeles press conference, out of an estimated annual toll of
35,000 turtles poached. Seconding Dedina was Homero Aridjis,
founder of the Mexican environmental protection organization Grupo de
100.

Japan, Norway defy IWC whaling moratorium

April 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2002:

TOKYO–With just a month left before the International
Whaling Commission is to meet in the Japanese whaling village of
Shimonoseki to decide whether to continue the 1986 global moratorium
on commercial whaling, Norway and Japan are racheting up the
pressure to end it through a series of gestures of defiance.
Many moratorium defenders fear that if Japan and Norway
decide to completely ignore it, the regulatory authority of the IWC
will collapse.

Supreme Court of Canada rules for seals

March 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:

OTTAWA–The Supreme Court of Canada ruled 9-0 on February 22
that the authority of the federal government “to preserve the
economic viability of not only the seal fishery, but the Canadian
fisheries in general” gives Ottawa the constitutional right to ban
the sale of whitecoated harp seal and bluebacked hooded seal pup
pelts–as has been done since the 1995 resumption of offshore
commercial sealing, to protect the public image of the hunt. The
verdict allows Ottawa to resume prosecuting 101 sealers for allegedly
killing seal pups in 1996. About 25,000 pelts were seized from them.
Funded by the Fish, Food and Allied Workers’ Union, sealer Ford
Ward, of La Scie, Newfoundland, challenged the federal right to
pursue the case.
The current sealing quotas are 275,000 for adult harp seals
and 10,000 for adult hooded seals–but only 91,000 seals were killed
in 2001, as pelt prices collapsed years ago and Viagra cut into
Asian demand for seal penises.

Tribes gun for more whales–and polar bears

January 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2002:

NEAH BAY, Washington–The Makah Tribal Council has asked the
U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service for a high-speed Coast
Guard-grade cutter similar to the whale-catchers used by Japan and
Norway– and has hinted that the Makah, like Japan, may engage in
so-called “research whaling.”
Claiming a right to kill gray whales since 1995, under the
1855 treaty that brought the Makah into the U.S., the Makah Tribal
Council said at first that it expected to sell whale meat to Japan.

Low-frequency sonar killed whales, U.S. Navy and NMFS admit

January 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2002:

WASHINGTON, D.C.–A joint report by the U.S. Navy and
National Marine Fisheries Service confirms the February 2001
allegation of Center for Whale Research founder Ken Balcomb that
sound waves from Navy sonar exercises caused 16 small toothed whales
and a spotted dolphin to beach themselves in the Bahamas in mid-March
2000.
Seven of the animals died. The other 10 were pushed back out
to sea by would-be rescuers, but are also believed to have died.

“Dolphin-safe” tuna labeling law may go to top U.S. courts

January 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2002:

NEW YORK, N.Y.–The “dolphin-safe” tuna labeling issue may
be headed to the U.S. Court of Appeals and perhaps the U.S. Supreme
Court, after Court of International Trade judge Judith Barzilay on
December 7, 2001 ruled again–as she did in April 2000–that the
revised “dolphin-safe” tuna standard imposed by the 1997
International Dolphin Conservation Program Act has been correctly
followed by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The Barzilay verdicts conflict with an April 2000 ruling by
Thelton E. Henderson, chief judge of the Federal District Court in
San Francisco. Despite the April 2000 Henderson verdict, which came
shortly after Barzilay’s first ruling, the relaxed “dolphin-safe”
standard took effect one day later.

Japanese mobilize to save whales their government wants to kill

January 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2002:

TOKYO–Thousands of Japanese volunteers worked around the
clock from the morning of January 22 into mid-day on January 24 in a
futile effort to save 14 whales who ran aground near the town of
Ouracho on the southern island of Kyushu. Thirteen whales suffocated
before they could be towed back to sea, but the newspaper Yomiuri
Shumbun reported that one whale survived.
Yomiuri Shumbun identified the victims as Bryde’s whales,
but BBC News reported that they were sperm whales. Either way, they
were among the species that the Japanese “research” whaling fleet
killed during 2001 in the north Pacific.

BlueVoicers, Sea Shepherds, MEDASSET defend marine life

October 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2001:

Video crew assaulted in Japan

“Videotaping the capture of whales for broadcast on the
Internet,” BlueVoice.org executive director Hardy Jones, director
Larry Curtis, and Sakae Fujiwara of the Elsa Nature Conservancy, of
Tsukuba, Japan, reported that they were “threatened with knives” on
October 9-10 “by the fishers who killed more than 20 pilot whales,”
in a shallow bay near the village of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture,
Japan.

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