First Nations group keeps pressure on DFO over proposal for seal and sea lion hunt
Credit to Author: Derrick Penner| Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2019 00:59:01 +0000
First Nations members advocating a seal and sea lion hunt to protect salmon are renewing pressure on the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to allow commercial sales of products from the animals in light of low returns this summer.
Tom Sewid, a director with Pacific Balance Marine Management Ltd., said he and company president Roy Jones Jr., will be in Vancouver early next week to demand that DFO act on a request they made last March.
The First Nations are acting on the premise there is an overpopulation of harbour seals, California and stellar sea lions, that are decimating coastal salmon stocks, but could be controlled through hunting.
And Sewid said First Nations are also in need of the potential economic opportunity from selling seal hides, meat and blubber for its oils rich in Omega 3 fatty acids.
Many First Nations have rights to hunt seals and sea lions for food, ceremonial and social purposes, Sewid said, but they need DFO’s co-operation for sales and export of products from the animals.
“Fisheries not doing anything is just holding everything in limbo,” Sewid said. “If you look at it, it’s socioeconomic suppression of First Nations, no different than when they removed the buffalo. Why aren’t they allowing First Nations to prosper with this new fishery?”
DFO spokesperson Leri Davies, in an emailed statement, said DFO is “conducting a thorough review of their proposal” submitted under the department’s new and emerging fisheries policy.
Davies said DFO convened an expert workshop in May as part of that review to reach a decision based on “an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management.”
Sewid and Jones separated from a group known as the Pacific Balance Pinniped Society, using the word that refers to flipper-footed species such as seals, sea lions and walruses, and he has formed his own company for this effort.
“I get a call every day asking for licences (to hunt seals), ‘where do I apply for a licence,’” said Jones, who is from the Haida First Nation.
Sewid, who is from the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation of northern Vancouver Island, said with licences to sell, hunters would first have access to markets for animal hides in the fur market.
With further testing, Sewid said there are markets for seal and sea lion meat in pet food, restaurants and grocery chains, particularly in China, which is already the biggest market for seal from Canada’s East Coast.
Sewid said their case that seal and sea lion populations — which number some 110,000 on the coast — could sustainably be reduced by half then maintained through hunting is supported by senior biologist Carl Walters at the University of B.C.’s institute for oceans and fisheries.
However, there are still divided opinions on whether the problems with coastal salmon stocks, particularly chinook, are being caused at the top by predation of seals and sea lions or at the bottom by a lack of food in their ocean environment, said Andrew Trites, director of the marine mammal research unit at UBC’s institute for oceans and fisheries.
“It comes down to which is right,” Trites said, “and can you tell which is right.”
Trites added there are consequences from significantly reducing seal and sea lion numbers including impacts on populations of transient killer whales, which primarily feed on seals and sea lions.
Davies, in the statement from DFO, said the numbers of transient killer whales, also known as Biggs killer whales, have been increasing in inshore waters on the B.C. coast, but they are listed as threatened under the Species at Risk Act.
And seals and sea lions have been identified as important food sources for the Biggs whales, Davies said.
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