By MICHELLE THERIAULT, Michelle
Theriault, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jul 6, 11.48
am ET
JOHANNESBURG – Namibia's annual commercial seal hunt will go on
despite objections by animal welfare groups, a government official
said Monday.
Frans Tsheehama of the Namibian fisheries and marine resources
ministry said that the season started on July 1 and will run until
Nov. 15.
Hunters are expected to club over 90,000 seals, including 85,000
pups.
The hunt was expected to begin last week, but there was
confusion over whether the killings had begun after numerous media
reports that a South African-based animal rights activist was in
negotiations to halt them.
Namibia is one of only a few remaining countries with a
commercial seal harvest. The government argues that the seal
population needs to be controlled to protect fish
stocks.
However, animal rights activists say the practice is inhumane
and outdated.
Seals are hunted for skins, fur and meat, and seal genitals are
sold as traditional medicines and aphrodisiacs in Asia.
Activist Francois Hugo of Seal
Alert South Africa said last week that he had made a bid to buy out
the company that purchases the Namibian seal pelts, effectively
halting the hunt.
Hugo said that clubbing an animal to death is cruel, criminal
and in defiance of international animal protection laws.
He also challenged the Namibian government's claim that the hunt
maintained healthy seal populations, saying that in the past whole
colonies had been devastated.
Namibia's seals number about 850,000 and live on a dozen remote,
rocky islands off the coast of the sparsely populated southern
African country.
The hunt takes place under clandestine circumstances to avoid
the glare of publicity — and to avoid upsetting tourists.
The government has said seals consume 900,000 tons of fish each
year, more than a third of the fishing industry's catch, and that
the cull is needed to protect fisheries. Animal welfare groups
counter that most of the seals killed are still-nursing pups.
AJ Cady of the International Fund for Animal Welfare said that
the industry is "collapsing" worldwide, citing a recent European
Union ban on the import of seal products combined
with the global economic downturn. In this year's Canadian harvest,
sealers killed less than a third of their quota on weak demand.
"The great question here is who is really buying these things?"
Cady said. "The cruelty is so obvious."
