Sealing Industry is Being Regulated to Death

The following letter was sent to Federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea:

Dear Minister Shea;

I don’t know the two men involved in the court cases below personally, but they live near me.

Otto Anstey — Cottlesville, NL

• Marine Mammal Regulations, Section 28(3): Failed to properly crush cranium of seal after it was shot
• Marine Mammal Regulations, Section 28(1)(b): Use of illegal hakapik (handle too short)
• Fishery (General) Regulations, Section 22(7): Violation of fishing licence condition, failed to properly bleed harp seal.
• Fined $1,200 ($400 per violation) with 12 months to pay

Rayfield Anstey — Cottlesville, NL

• Marine Mammal Regulations, Section 28(3): Failed to properly crush cranium of seal after it was shot
• Marine Mammal Regulations, Section 28(1)(b): Use of illegal hakapik (handle too short)
• Fishery (General) Regulations, Section 22(7): Violation of fishing licence condition, failed to properly bleed harp seal
• Fined $1,200 ($400 per violation) with 12 months to pay

This seal thing and prosecuting people seal hunting has only one agenda and that is to get rid of people who hunt seals.

Newfoundlanders have hunted seals for centuries and now you have these parasite groups like PETA, IFAW and now the Sealers Association getting funds to teach courses and recommend policy to DFO on how to dispatch seals.

I have been a seal hunter for 50 years and sometimes when hunting seals from a small speed boat, if the seal shows any sign of life onboard your boat you will finish it off by a blow to the head.

If the handle on your gaff, or in this case a hakapik, is too long, you cannot administer a swift Coup De Gras because of the small space in the boat. Most experienced seal harvesters have a short-handled hakapik for this reason.

I got checked a few years ago while seal hunting many miles offshore by the CCG Vessel Amundsen. The officials were going to take my hakapik because the point was too long. I told them I would cut it off and what I cut off fell to the deck like a finger nail clipping. I have witnesses to this event.

Just try to hit something with a broom handle near your feet in a narrow place. Who in the hell comes up with these stupid ideas that’s causing honest hard-working Newfoundlanders to be dragged into court for such silliness at the taxpayers’ expense?

No other harvested animal in Canada do you have to crush the cranium — only a seal. Imagine doing this to a moose or cattle?

If I were Inuit, I wouldn’t need a license or conditions and I could kill a seal with a harpoon or any way I chose, but I bet there is someone in a back room in Ottawa trying to take away their cultural hunt as well.

We as Newfoundlanders also have cultural rights that are getting trampled on every year by your department and you are the captain and its time you took your job seriously and look at these stupid regulations that are alienating people from your department every day.

Isn’t it time to amend some of the six pages of conditions on my sealing license? We as seal hunters could kiss a seal to death and not find favour with these animal rights groups, so stop trying to appease them. I tell you minister that seal hunters bring new money into this county by working hard and I am afraid that sealing will go the same way as our inshore fishery — being regulated out of existence by your department.

John Gillett
Twillingate, NL