Scapegoated Seals Save Cod by Anthony Marr

[Omaha Steve]

Scapegoated Seals Save Cod

by Anthony Marr

While driving from Toronto to Ottawa – a four hour trip at 100 km/h - I picked up a hitch-hiker on the Toronto end, who, much to my regret, happened to be a sealer. For want of a more civil remark, I told him that he should have walked all the way to Ottawa, as an atonement.

"What for?"

"The two cities are 248 miles or 390 km apart. If you line up all the seals you guys kill every year in a single file, the line of some 350,000 seals, at a bit more than one meter per seal, would stretch from the CN Tower in Toronto all the way to the Parliament Building in Ottawa. I think, out of respect for these sentient beings, the least you can do is to walk a Funeral March for the Hunted, from the first one you kill to the last."

"A funeral march for seals? That’s ludicrous. They don’t even have souls, for Christ’s sake."

"Speaking of souls, I might suggest that you take the Funeral March as a penance. It would be good for your karma, too. Some cultures would believe that you will reincarnate as a seal next life, one destined to be skinned alive, if you don’t do something about it now."

"Yeah, right, I’m quaking in my boots already," he sneered.

"Personally, though I do find reincarnation a fascinating concept, I don’t believe this interpretation of it either. I just can’t look at an innocent baby seal and think that it used to be an evil human baby-seal killer, reborn to be skinned alive by other baby-seal killers, to atone for that ex-baby-seal-killer’s crimes. It would be adding-insult-to-injury of the worst kind. But I do think that walking the 390 km on the Funeral March for the Hunted would be good for your soul, if you have one."

"Sorry to say this to you, pal, but your 390 km is way off base. Most of the seals we kill are just babies as young as two weeks old. They don’t measure up to a meter in length. Your line of seals would be well short of 390 km; 300 km max. So there."

"I rest my case," I said, without bothering to argue that adult harp seals average 1.8 meters long, which would counter-balance the baby seals’ shortfall, or point out that the sealers and even the Canadian Fisheries Minister have been dismissing the word "baby". Instead, I asked, "How can you justify this kind of carnage? Don’t you have feelings?"

"Sure I have feelings. But it’s no skin off my back." The sneer broadened into a lopsided grin. No seal could ever produce an evil expression as this, that’s for damn sure.

"Do they have feelings?"

"Who? The seals? Why don't you ask them?"

"I don't have to. Their writhing when you skin them alive says they do. But you don't think that they feel pain?"

"I don't know. And, frankly, I don't care."

"Can't you feel their pain?"

"Not a bit. I hear them scream. I see them writhe, yeah. But I feel just fine. In fact, the more seals I kill, the better I feel."

"Don't you also feel just a bit cowardly to torture and kill a pup whose mother cannot defend, who can't defend himself, and who cannot fight back?"

"Better a living coward than a dead hero, is what I say."

"Have you no pride?"

"How much is pride a kilo, eh? How much per kilo do you sell courage for? Come to think of it, pride and courage are very expensive- to buy. So, you can keep'm. As for me, I have seal skins, seal oil and seal penises to sell, at a hundred bucks a pop, or should I say, a pup, haha."

Even-tempered as I think I am, I was beginning to see red. I took a moment to collect myself. "I believe that deep down you do feel some pain, however much you succeed in concealing it from yourself. Really, tell me. Why do you do it? You don't make all that much of money out of it. You’re primarily a cod fisherman."

His eyes lit up above the grin. "Aha! I kill seals because they eat fish, cod in particular. The more seals, the fewer cod, the fewer seals, the more cod. Plain and simple. There are some 5 million seals out there. They eat up a hell of a lot of cod. So, I don’t get enough."
"I think you got too much. It is called over fishing. And you’re scapegoating the seals for your own blunder driven by greed," I could have sounded a little less hostile, but I’m not a seal; I’m human.

"We follow the law. If the law says it is okay, it is okay. The law says it is okay."

"Only 3% of a seal’s diet comprises cod," I pointed out.

"3% of the total amount of fish eaten by 5 million seals is still a lot of cod."

I pressed on, "In other words, 97% of the seal’s diet consists of other fish species that prey on cod. Without the seals controlling the population of the predatory fish species, the amount of cod eaten would be many times greater."

"I’ve heard that before. It’s just a theory, and a vague one at that. There is no proof."

"I don’t know about you, but we on the west coast have proof," I asserted.

"What proof? Your harbour seals there eat salmon. I’m sure the same law of nature applies. More seals, fewer salmon; fewer seals, more salmon."

"That’s just it. It’s just the opposite. On the west coast, it is more seals, more salmon, fewer seals fewer salmon," I sought to humbly inform him.

"That’s ridiculous. Where’s your proof?"

"Before I provide the proof, could you tell me what fish species the harbour seal preys on?"

"Salmon, of course, and some others, maybe herring, smelt, hake, mackerel, something like that."

"There are about 20 major fish species on which the harbour seals feed. In descending order of volume consumed, they are rock fish, Pacific sand lance, Pacific herring, Pacific staghorn sculpin, smelt, Pacific tomcod, lamprey, flounder, shad, flatfish, Pacific hake, Shiner surf perch, gunnel, prickleback, juvenile salmonids, Northern anchovy, adult salmonids, Peamouth chub and Pacific Macheral, as well as cephalopods like squid."

"So?"

"Where are the salmonids on this list?"

"I thought you were going to give me some kind of proof," he said evasively, but in doing so, jumped from the pan into the fire.

"Do you know that there used to be a commercial seal hunt on the west coast too, combined with a bounty hunt?" I asked him.

"Can’t say that I do."

"Well, it happened in the late 30’s through into the 60s. By the late 60s, the seal population had become so decimated that the hunt was banned in 1969. The ban stays in force today. The seal population has recovered."

"Bad news."

"Good news. According to your formula of more seals, fewer salmon, fewer seals, more salmon, the salmon population in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s should be high and that in the 70s, 80s and 90s should be low. Correct?"

"Damn right."

"Well, just the opposite is true."

"More seals, more salmon; fewer seals, fewer salmon?"

"Correct."

"I don’t believe it."

"Believe it."

"What do you have to back this up? "

"Could you open the Road Atlas to British Columbia?"

He did, reluctantly. "This better be good."

"Pick a river. Any river."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"Alright. The Kitimat River."

"Do you know about escapement?"

"Sure. It is the number of adult salmon that make it all the way up to their spawning ground to spawn in a salmon run. What about it?"

"Now, let’s see. For the Kitimat river, the 1950s escapement of Chum salmon averaged 16,700; 70s, 26,400; 90s, no mistake, 129,000. For Chinook salmon, 1950s, 4,100; 80s, 9,900; 90s, 16,700."

"You’re making things up as you go."

"No. Just photographic memory. Try another river."

"I don’t particularly want to play this silly game."

"It is no game. Why don’t you write down these numbers, and check them in a government library in Ottawa when we get there?"

"A waste of time."

"So, you are afraid to find out?"

"Not at all, ‘cause I know you must be wrong. So, lie some more. Here. The Babine River. What numbers are you gonna make up?"

"1950s, Babine River escapement of even-year Pink salmon average 11,800; 60s, 41,000; 70s, 106,000; 80s, 202,000; 90s, 214,700."

"The Kishwan River."

"1950s, escapement of Chum salmon 4,000; 60s, 1,150; 70s, 7,350; 80s, 13,200; 90s, 21,000."

"The Pinkut River."

"Escapement of Sockeye salmon in the 50s, 27,200; the 60s, 40,500; the 70s, 73,900; the 80s, 241,000; and the 90s, 260,900."

"Enough of this crap! Even if these are true, they are west coast harbour seal and salmon, not the east coast harp seal and cod."

"And the natural law is different in the west than in the east?"

"If your figures are correct, it damn well is."

"So, are you going to do a funeral march for the seals you slaughter or not?"

"Why should I? They eat my cod."


*Note: The above numbers were exacted from BC government and academic documents.