CANADA KILLS SEALS FOR CHRISTMAS
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1997:
OTTAWA––Canadian fisheries minister
Fred Mifflin on Christmas Eve raised the
Atlantic Canadian harp sealing quota to 275,000,
up from 250,000 last spring, when 247,000 carcasses
were retrieved and thousands more washed
up on Newfoundland beaches. Although newborns,
called whitecoats, were and are off limits,
about 2,200 whitecoats were killed.
Mifflin left the quota for adult hooded
seals at 8,000, as in 1996, with juveniles, or
bluebacks, still off limits––but last year sealers
actually killed as many as 22,800 bluebacks. The
Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans has
charged 101 sealers including former Canadian
Sealers Association president Mark Small with
illegally killing whitecoats and bluebacks.