Category: Marine Animals

Newfoundland asks to kill 2 million seals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1999:

OTTAWA––With Canadian fisheries
minister David Anderson imminently
expected to announce the 1999 seal-killing
quota, Newfoundland fisheries minister John
Efford on January 5 recommended a “onetime
cull” of two million harp seals and grey
seals––almost half the total population, by
government estimates.
Should Anderson prove unwilling
to authorize such a slaughter, Effords said he
would favor increasing the annual sealing
quota to 400,000––68% more than were
legally killed in either 1997 or 1998.
Known for his furious assertions
that seals rather than overfishing are responsible
for the economically catastrophic depletion
of Atlantic Canadian cod, mackerel,
salmon, and skates, Efford buttressed his
recommendation with a 32-page report
authored by former Canadian Department of
Fisheries and Oceans head research scientist
George Winters.

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Sea Shepherds give thanks for stormy seas

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

NEAH BAY, Wash.; TOKYO– –
Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society celebrated Thanksgiving
ashore, tied at dockside in Friday Harbor.
A three-month symbolic blockade of
Neah Bay by his big blue boat, the Sea
Shepherd III, and his little black boat, The
Sirenian, kept the would-be whale-killers of
the Makah Tribal Commission bottled up in
port until after winter seas made just rowing a
hand-hewn wooden canoe life-threatening, let
alone trying to harpoon a gray whale from it.
The Sea Shepherd vessels didn’t
actually keep anyone from coming in or going
out of the harbor, but just knowing they were
there visibly grated the Makah would-be
whalers’ nerves.

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U.S. ignores sea turtle deadline

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The U.S.
was to tell the World Trade Organization by
December 6 what it plans to do to bring sea turtle
protection into line with the General
Agreement on Trade and Tariffs.
Ignoring the WTO could bring trade
sanctions. But with President Bill Clinton and
Congress engaged in impeachment hearings,
the deadline passed with scant notice.
The U.S. on November 6 formally
accepted an October 12 WTO appellate court
panel ruling that barring shrimp imports from
nations whose shrimpers don’t use Turtle
Exclusion Devices (TEDs) is a so-called
“process standard,” violating GATT.
The verdict upheld the April opinion
of a GATT trade tribunal.

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Action but no whaling––yet

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

NEAH BAY, Washington– – Makah
Tribal Council plans to kill grey whales
appeared in disarray in mid-November––but the
hunt was still definitely on, Makah Whaling
Commission president Keith Johnson told
increasingly skeptical media.
“Instead of engaging its first whale in
70 years,” Seattle Times reporter Lynda V.
Mapes wrote on November 9, “the tribe has
only tangled with whaling opponents and the
press. Instead of answering questions about the
hunt, the tribe is being grilled about arrests by
tribal police of whaling protesters on November
1. Tribal members are asked why their youngsters
threw rocks at nonviolent whaling protesters.
And they are questioned about their police
chief’s fitness for duty.”

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Dolphin racing? Don’t bet on it.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

VANCOUVER, B.C.––A possible hint to the paranoid
of the depth of Japanese zeal to revive coastal whaling
lurked within a July 7 announcement by the Vancouver-based
Global Intertainment Corporation that “The first annual
International Dolphin Races, a dolphin racing and jumping
competition,” will “be held in the Caribbean next February.”
Promising that the event would “combine the spectacle
of Sea World, the betting adrenalin of Churchill Downs,
and the global reach of the Internet,” GIC added that “the contest
will be beamed into cyberspace via live feed technology
and will give viewers the opportunity to bet on their favorite
contestants from anywhere in the world.”
GIC said “The week-long event will feature animals
trained for use in dolphin shows and other entertainment
venues,” but didn’t say where they might come from.
Supposedly, “Each dolphin will pre-qualify with lap times and
jump measurements, and odds will be calculated based on
those trials. Two days will be devoted to the competitions, and
the remainder of the week will feature hourly non-competitive
shows similar to those seen at Sea World.”
With a nod to political correctness, GIC added that
“The event is designed to raise international awareness of dolphins.
A portion of the proceeds from the wagers and on-site
admission fees will be donated to the Dolphin Wildlife Fund
[and] Save the Dolphin Fund, in addition to a number of children’s
charities.”

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Help Sea Shepherds stop Makah whaling by Michael Kundu

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

Two centuries ago, gray whales migrating
north past Neah Bay in Washington State were
harpooned by Makah tribal whalers. The killing,
done from cedar canoes with wooden harpoons,
was a tradition. Trading oil from the gray whale
made the Makah prosperous. But over time, the
gray whale population dwindled. Then, for many
decades, the killing stopped.
This October, 76 years after the Makah
last killed a whale, the Makah Whaling
Commission intends to resume whaling, within
waters now part of the Olympic National Marine
Sanctuary. The killing will signal an international
escalation of illegal commercial whaling. Pirate
whaling nations, primarily Japan and Norway,
have furtively promoted this and other so-called
indigenous whale hunts the world over.

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Fixing for a fight of Leviathans

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

NEAH BAY, Wash.; NEWPORT,
Ore.––If the media drama underway in the
Pacific Northwest was a professional wrestling
match, it would be billed as the Makah
Harpooners vs. Willy the Whale, alias Killer
Keiko, orca star of the hit films Free Willy!,
Free Willy II, and Free Willy III.
Scrapping for air time, they might
make a show of enmity, and their partisans
might fall for it, but more cynical viewers
would suspect they were working for the same
syndicate.
But who might own the syndicate––
Hollywood, or Japan?
Whoever wrote the “Keiko-vs.-
Makah” script, literal or figurative, seems to
have worked for four years to bring about an
autumn battle of Leviathans. Captain Paul “The
Pirate” Watson and fellow voyagers of the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society will try to put
themselves between the Makah whalers and
migrating gray whales. The Free Willy/Keiko
Foundation, led by David Phillips, also head of
Earth Island Institute, will meanwhile prepare
Keiko to become the first of his species ever
returned to the ocean after prolonged captivity.
The real struggle will come through
your TV and mailbox, as their causes vie for
public interest and donations.

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1,001 tales of whales

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1998:

MUSCAT, Oman––The 50th annual
meeting of the International Whaling
Commission opened on May 16 in Muscat,
Oman, but lasted just one Arabian night
before chairperson Michael Canny of Ireland
suspended proceedings from Sunday, May 17,
until at least Tuesday, May 19.
In the interim Canny hoped to
resolve an impasse resulting when Japan and
seven Caribbean nations led by Antigua
demanded that all votes be via secret ballot.
The U.S. and most European nations oppose
secret votes, which would allow nations to
take private positions contravening their public
stance. Nongovernmental organizations
opposed to whaling accused Japan of purchasing
votes by linking foreign aid to whaling.

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BOOKS: Gray Whales: Wandering Giants

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:

Gray Whales:
Wandering Giants
by Robert H. Busch
Orca Book Publishers (POB 468, Custer,
WA 98240-0468), 1998.
138 pages, paperback, $19.95.

Among the whales most often seen
along the Pacific coast, gray whales until
recently have been much less known than the
acrobatic orcas and humpbacks, and the giant
blue whales, who––though relatively rarely
seen––loom as large in imagination as in life.
Perhaps for that reason there was
little public opposition when gray whales
were downlisted from endangered to threatened
in 1992, and removed completely from
Endangered Species Act protection in 1994.

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