Spared by court, sea lions are shot by night raiders

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
PORTLAND–The National Marine Fisheries Service is
investigating the early May 5 fatal shooting of six California sea
lions who were trapped in floating cages used by the Oregon
Department of Fish & Wildlife to capture sea lions who are believed
to be contributing to the depletion of endangered salmon runs.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 23, 2008
granted an injunction to the Humane Society of the U.S. and
coplaintiffs which allowed Oregon wildlife wardens to capture sea
lions who eat endangered salmon below the Bonneville Dam on the
Columbia River, but prohibited killing sea lions.
Eight of 61 sea lions targeted for removal were trapped on
April 24, of whom one died while awaiting transfer to Sea World.
Zoos and aquariums had agreed to accept about 20. No others were
impounded before the program was suspended. The National Marine
Fisheries Service had authorized Oregon officials to kill any for
whom homes could not be found.

Swinging Canadian elections keeps the sealers swinging clubs

May 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
Swinging Canadian elections keeps the sealers swinging clubs
Commentary by Merritt Clifton

Thirty years ago, when I first wrote
about the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt as a rural
Quebec newspaper reporter, both the hunt and
protests against it already seemed to have gone
on forever–but I had hopes that the efforts of
Brigitte Bardot and Paul Watson would soon end
it. Bardot brought global celebrity status to
the campaign; Watson had just introduced the
then new tactic of actually confronting the
sealers on the ice, as cameras rolled.
I had known about the hunt and the
protests for close to 10 years, first hearing
of it soon after Brian Davies moved his Save The
Seals Fund to the U.S. from New Brunswick and
retitled it the International Fund for Animal
Welfare.
When the U.S. Postal Service introduced
nonprofit bulk mail discounts in 1969, the seal
hunt was among the topics that built IFAW, the
Animal Protection Institute, Greenpeace, and
the Fund for Animals. The seal hunt was already
a cause celebré before Bardot gave up acting to
start the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, before
Watson formed the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society while Greenpeace retreated from the
sealing issue.

Columbia River sea lion removals are delayed by HSUS appeal

April 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:

PORTLAND, Oregon– The National Marine Fisheries Service and
the Oregon and Washington state governments on April 1, 2008 agreed
to postpone killing or capturing California sea lions downstream from
the Bonne-ville Dam on the Columbia River, pending a U.S. District
Court ruling on a motion for a preliminary injunction against the
proposed removals, filed on March 28 by the Humane Society of the
U.S.
“State officials have put out the message to zoos, aquariums
and theme parks that they need homes for sea lions,” reported
Michael Milstein of the Oregonian.

Four sealers drown at start of 2008 Atlantic Canada hunt

April 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:
ILES-DE-LA-MADELEINE, Quebec; St. Pierre, Miquelon–
Treacherous ice conditions for the second consecutive year inhibited
the opening of the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt.
Sixteen vessels carrying approximately 100 sealers left
Iles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec, on March 28, heading toward a large
seal rookery in the Cabot Strait. One of the smaller boats,
L’Acadien II, with six men aboard, lost rudder control, possibly
from the rudder striking ice, and was taken in tow by the Canadian
Coast Guard icebreaker Sir William Alexander.
L’Acadien II captain Bruno Bourque and crew members Gilles
Leblanc and Marc-Andre Deraspe were killed and crew member Carl
Aucoin was missing and presumed dead after the boat hit a truck-sized
chunk of ice early on March 29, and flipped over while still under
tow. The sealing vessel Madelinot War Lord, following the tow,
rescued sealers Claude Deraspe and captain Bourque’s son,
Bruno-Pierre Bourque.

Judges overturn Bush sonar waiver

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
LOS ANGELES, HONOLULU–U.S. President George W. Bush on
January 15, 2008 exempted the U.S. Navy from a preliminary
injunction creating a 12-nautical-mile no-sonar off Southern
California, meant to protect marine mammals, but the Navy is not
“exempted from compliance with the National Environmental Policy
Act,” U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ruled on February 4
in Los Angeles.
Three days later, on February 7, U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth
Laporte of San Francisco found that the Navy failed to take adequate
precautions to protect marine mammals before using low-frequency
sonar in submarine detection exercises. Laporte directed the Navy to
establish sonar-free zones around eight locations worldwide that
attract sound-sensitive species.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
then ruled on February 29 in Los Angeles that the Navy must observe
Cooper’s February 4 ruling.

Pew Charitable Trust symposium favors coastal whaling

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
TOKYO–Chairing a “Whale Symposium” sponsored by the
environmentally oriented Pew Charitable Trusts, former Samoan
ambassador to the United Nations and International Criminal Court
judge Tuiloma Neroni Slade on February 20, 2008 said, according to
the Pew web site, that “the most promising compromise” to resolve
conflict with Japan over the 22-year-old International Whaling
Commission moratorium on commercial whaling “would be a combination
of actions which would recognize potentially legitimate claims by
coastal whaling communities; suspend scientific whaling in its
current form and respect sanctuaries; and define a finite number of
whales that can be taken by all of the world’s nations.”

Atlantic Canada sealing starts off Nova Scotia

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
The 2008 Atlantic Canadian sealing season started with a
mid-February cull on Hay Island, off Nova Scotia, demanded by
fishers who blame seals for the failure of cod to recover despite 16
years of fishing limits.
“Nova Scotia already has a yearly quota of 12,000 grey seals,
but in recent years hunters have rarely taken more than a few hundred
annually,” reported John Lewandowski of Canadian Press.
Acknowledging that the primary purpose of the Hay Island cull
was to try to stimulate commercial sealing, Nova Scotia fisheries
minister Ron Chisholm authorized participants to kill up to 2,500
seals. They actually killed about half that many.

Whalers spend winter hiding

March 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
HOBART, TOKYO–Sea Shepherd Conservation Society captain
Paul Watson on March 2, 2008 reported that the crew of the Sea
Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin had pitched two dozen bottles of rancid
butter onto deck of the Japanese whaling factory ship Nisshiin Maru
in Porpoise Bay, off Antarctica.
The stink bomb attack came toward the end of a winter-long
campaign that saw Sea Shepherds, joined at times by Greenpeace and
the Australian coast guard, stalking the Nisshin Maru since the
Steve Irwin sailed from Melbourne on December 5, 2007. The Nisshin
Maru, four whale-catching vessels, and the supply ship Oriental
Bluebird spent most of the winter trying to elude observation,
rather than killing whales. The Japanese coast guard vessel
Fukuyoshi Maru #68 had shadowed the Steve Irwin since January 15,
but was ultimately not able to keep the Sea Shepherds away from the
Nisshin Maru.

Concern spreads about U.S. Navy sonar harm to dolphins

November 1, 2007 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2007:
SAN FRANCISCO, TEHRAN–Ruling on behalf of the Natural
Resources Defense Council, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals on November 13, 2007 allowed the U.S. Navy to
finish a training exercise off the coast of California that was
already underway and was to conclude on November 22, but ordered the
Navy to reduce the harm done to whales by sonar anti-submarine
detection equipment before beginning a new exercise near the Channel
Islands in January 2008.
Eight other planned Navy exercises may also be delayed by the
ruling, reported Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle. “Three
anti-submarine exercises had already been held,” Egelko wrote,
“when U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered a halt on
August 7, saying the Navy’s protective measures were ‘woefully
ineffectual and inadequate.’ She said the underwater sound waves
would harm nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including five
species of whales. Overruling Cooper on August 31, an appeals court
panel said she had failed to consider the need for military
preparedness.” But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed
the earlier panel.

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