Seal pup slaughter
Namibian sealers will start clubbing 50 000 Cape fur seal pups out of a total 65 000 pups born in December 2010 at Cape Cross seal reserve, in an attempt to fill an annual 80 000 pup quota to supply a Turkish businessman living in Australia with a million seal pup skins by 2019. It is now the largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world.
A further 30 000 pups
will be clubbed to death in the NamDeb/De Beers diamond restricted area at the Wolf/Atlas Bay seal colony.
Seal Alert-SA
commissioned an Ocean Law expert in March 2011 to give an expert legal opinion on the Namibian seal harvest. The legal opinion found that
the seal harvest is unlawful, unsustainable and cruel and calls for the annual seal harvest to be halted and a legal commission of enquiry setup to investigate the matter. The full legal opinion can be downloaded here (
www.mediafire. com/?cx8225tknr6vvc8). Under the Namibian
Animal Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1962, the Namibian SPCA has the legal authority to step in, obtain a Magistrate’s order and arrest the seal clubbers. The Namibian SPCA is refusing to do so, claiming that a seal is not an animal. On June 1, 2011, Seal
Alert-SA’s attorney’s sent the legal opinion to the President, Prime Minister, the Ombudsman and the Minister’s of Fisheries, Justice, Environment
and Tourism and Trade. Including CITES and De Beers. Namibia’s Ombudsman John Walters then replied to the attorneys, “He said that due to the urgency of this complaint he is going to try his best to get a meeting with the ministers prior to the start of harvest on July 1st. He did say, however, that once the government has made a decision it is not easy to get them to decide against it, but nevertheless he will try.” He requested a summary for his meetings.
Seal Alert-SA’s
attorney’s then submitted a short summary, with the following message; “Based on the evidence presented to you we are of the opinion that there are sufficient grounds on which to obtain an urgent interdict
preventing the Minister from commencing the harvest pending further investigation into the legalities of it.” The summary can be downloaded here, (
www.mediafire. com/?ot70coys6jbtgj9). South Africa took the
bold step in 1990 and ended its annual commercial seal harvest permanently on Cape fur seals – its 46 million citizens and fisheries have never looked back and prime commercial fish species of sardine and anchovy have exceed recovery to pre- exploitative numbers. So Namibia, do it! Africa needs to
protect its valuable wildlife not slaughter it for the commercial gain of one individual Turkish/ Australian businessman. By Francois Hugo of Seal Alert-SA
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