Chief of Haida Gwaii First Nations and Group Calling for Seal/Sea Lion Quota

I think it would be hard to determine what a quota should look like - altho if you wish to develop a seal leather industry - you may need one. I think knocking them off at chokepoints should be the focus...
 
there are several valid reasons to do so: however ,blaming them for the whole problem is not one of them..
  1. Rid predation where a stock faces exceptional challenges towards recovery? perhaps a closer look at that , at some point if you cull out a few , does that only allow the remaining a bigger slice of the same pie.. end result the remaining predators get fatter , and the stock remains challenged.
  2. No doubt the seals ,sea lion etc. were once a staple of the indigenous and early settler , why not now.. Food ,and wares ? need a market.. Markets require social acceptance, perhaps Native people will get away with it , whitey will not..
  3. It is a bonafide natural resource that is plentiful and useable.. culling methods would and do make for great headlines, the pictures of a seal pup being clubbed and or gutted alive still are vivid headline grabbers..
 
Good points doonhanner.

On the assertion that by knocking off seals at choke points - outside seals will move in (quickly) to fill the gap - is an untested and unsupported assertion. Seals are territorial and animals of habit (as we all are). They learn (often from other seals) an area - and the haul-outs - the sound of motors and hydraulics - and how to ambush fish - or take them out of nets or off lines - for adult salmon. There lots of data/evidence/science to confirm this is where the problem is wrt seal impacts on salmon numbers (both adult and juvie) are at the choke points - and anyone who spends time on the coast at these choke points and in the estuaries, rivers and lakes - knows this 1st hand - along w observing that large increase in seal numbers over the past few years. That's where I see a reduction is seal numbers would help.

Yep needs FN involvement to make it "socially acceptable" (and legal) for the general public to get past the unfortunate "cuddly" seal false narrative developed by some of the NGOs. And yep you are right- we need to challenge those same NGOs to be accountable and honest - and not be afraid of their influence. Need to do that to all bullies. We need to change the narrative on them.
 
I agree on the choke point issue. The Sooke Spit at the entrance is a good example where you have a narrow shallow water opening at one end that is the perfect hunting point for ambushing all the salmon going in to the Sooke River. As I understand it, it is not a completely natural geographic feature in that it was once an island and many years back was filled in to create access for businesses that were located on the spit and also to provide a complete large breakwater to protect the harbour. There are many examples of humans altering the environment such as building bridges over lower rivers with lights that allow night hunting of salmon by the Pinnipeds.

Lets also not forget the massive population growth of sea lions that in my opinion is easily becoming the equal of the seal population problem with the possibility of exceeding it in the near future.

The high population of Pinnipeds is caused by the alteration to the environment by humans and because their just is not the predation on Pinnipeds that there once was. The transient Orca don't go in Sooke Harbour and rarely go into any develope harbours. Humans which hunted Pinnipeds on our coast for thousands of years no longer do so. There are now increasing areas on our coast that are human developed inadvertent Pinniped protection zones.

The wolves, bears and cougars no longer walk the rocky beaches to grab the young pups that have been hidden, camouflaged among the rocks. A great deal of human activity is concentrated along the coast and beaches and that has reduced their numbers in coastal areas and pushed them back from the beaches. There are a lot of humans now walking the beaches, for recreation, for clam digging etc. and of course everyone wants to build a house on the water but that keeps away the other historical predators. The east and south coast of Vancouver Island is quickly becoming one large urban area as are some other areas of the province. Pinnipeds like Racoons seem to be very suited to adapting to living in urbanized human population environments and then of course we made the problem far worse by giving them legal protections.

The Pinniped over population problem did not happen naturally, it is not a triumph of nature. Humans created it and there is a very good argument to be made that we now have a responsibility to control it. If we do not, many other species interests are harmed including humans. It is not just salmon, it is all the other species who depend on them from whales, eagles and bears to river trout who benefit from the nutrients that are added to rivers by their deaths after spawning.

Of course we could try and control the vertical growth curve of humans, which really is the source of this and a great many other environmental problems. Perhaps the NGO's would like to take that on but I doubt it. Human are hard wired to reproduce and asking them to get sterilized is just not a message they want to hear. It is not good for the NGO business model when they are hitting them up for donations which they need, because that is how they make their living.
 
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The new group "PACIFIC BALANCE PINNIPED SOCIETY" is up and running.
For those on Facebook, they have a new page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/186...ref=gs&dti=1864653340315808&hc_location=group

Their management plan has been submitted, and early indications suggest support from local DFO.
Coast wide support among FN's, and both recreational and commercial sectors has been very strong.

I suspect these folks will be getting on with their HARVEST (not cull!) programs reasonably soon.

I, for one, wish them All The Best!!

Cheers,
Nog
 
PACIFIC BALANCE PINNIPED SOCIETY is glad to announce that we have been given the green light to harvest about 30 seals from Victoria to Campbell River to Fraser River! Basically covering much of the Salish Sea a.k.a. Gulf of Georgia.

Samples of meat, blubber and liver will be taken to be tested by a laboratory to see if meets Canadian Food Inspection Agency standards for human and animal consumption.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/491305800985444/permalink/1918281588287851/
 
Will be very interesting to see how this all plays out. I'm sure they will try to keep most of this under wraps as much as possible. While it is certainly not a 'sure fix' to our salmon issues I think a targeted cull is worth an experiment. Wonder which lucky 30 seals will be chosen? There are some good candidates off the Capilano right now :)
 
tincan said:
... Wonder which lucky 30 seals will be chosen?
Click to expand...

There is no movement to "keep this under wraps".
In fact, the Society and it's mandate have been rather widely circulated / discussed both by the regular media and online.
No-one is hiding what they are up to here.

This initial harvest is a crucial first step that must occur prior to the finalizing of market development.
It's purpose is to identify what, if any contaminants are present in the seals and sea lions, and to determine at what levels those are for those thus identified.
As such, a rather wide distribution would be preferable to centering the harvest on one or two tighter areas.
For me, it will be interesting to compare the findings between off the mouth of the Fraser, the mid-gulf, and outside those areas.

Dependent upon findings, future harvests will indeed be "target specific" in that they will focus on areas where depredation is a known issue.

Cheers,
Nog
 
If they can actually find a use for the animals fine, but call me skeptical. There is virtually no market for the pelts anymore, the east coast hunt has a quota of 400,000 of which they harvest only about 50,000 and get almost nothing per pelt, so not sure what market is going to take these pelts. Despite hundreds of thousands of $ of grants to establish markets for the meat it is still virtually nonexistant, and that is for harp seal pup meat which is from very young milk fed baby seals who are not mobile. If there is any significant kill it will probably mean leaving carcasses in the water, or it being subsidized by the govt as there just isn't a market for seal products. All of the EU, US, Russia, even India have bans on seal products,so that leaves Asia, but so far despite a lot of money being spent they have not established any kind of significant market for the meat there.
 
california said:
If they can actually find a use for the animals fine, but call me skeptical. There is virtually no market for the pelts anymore, the east coast hunt has a quota of 400,000 of which they harvest only about 50,000 and get almost nothing per pelt, so not sure what market is going to take these pelts. Despite hundreds of thousands of $ of grants to establish markets for the meat it is still virtually nonexistant, and that is for harp seal pup meat which is from very young milk fed baby seals who are not mobile. If there is any significant kill it will probably mean leaving carcasses in the water, or it being subsidized by the govt as there just isn't a market for seal products. All of the EU, US, Russia, even India have bans on seal products,so that leaves Asia, but so far despite a lot of money being spent they have not established any kind of significant market for the meat there.
Click to expand...

Grind it up and use it for feed on land based salmon farms :rolleyes:
 
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I think there may be research opportunities that could be incorporated into any pinniped harvest. Things like a long term study of salmon survival rates in watersheds without targeted harvest of problem pinnipeds (control sites) compared to salmon survival rates in nearby watershed with targeted problem pinniped harvests.
Although a different species, a look at how our neighbours to the north are managing sea otter harvests may give insight on how to structure a pinniped harvest here.
https://www.fws.gov/alaska/fisheries/mmm/mtrp/pdf/factsheets/HUNTINGANDUSEOFSEAOTTERS2010.pdf
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=637
 
The science is pointing to certain individual animals that have become habituated to preying upon smolts. They are territorial so it would make sense to have a very scientific approach to harvest only specific animals.

We must avoid an indescriminant harvest because there are potential dire consequences. For example, pacific hake are another very significant predator of salmon smolts. Pinniped also prey upon hake. If we harvest the wrong pinniped groups we risk upsetting the balance. Moreover, pinniped form an important diet for the transient killer whales therefore we must guard against unintended consequences

My 2 cents
 
Rockfish said:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/noisy-smelly-sea-lions-fill-cowichan-bay-1.4906294

Up another 120 Sea Lions over the previous year. It does not seam to matter how much money and effort goes into putting more Chinook into the ocean from a river system, when it is negated immediately.
Click to expand...

Maybe they are up in numbers their because the Cowichan is having fairly decent returns...Is that a bad thing?

Seems like they are also pretty important to the economy?

"Yet, for all their faults, Pidcock says the sea lions have been a boon to tourism, as people come to the bay to witness the (in)famous visitors."


I should note I support the harvest PACIFIC BALANCE PINNIPED SOCIETY is proposing but recently I have noticed that more ENGO types are coming into their Facebook page and make a bit of a stink. Tom does a great job of dealing with them but it does show their is opposition to a cull. Does seem to be more support tho for a traditional FN harvest.
 
Of course there will be some opposition voiced by those the agenda driven animal rights groups can convince to become incensed.
Pretty well a forgone conclusion.
Same folks that managed to end the grizzly hunt in BC, and are now fortified by that victory.
They will / are being spoon-fed a lot of misinformation, complete with of course wonderful pictures of huge brown eyed charismatic sea puppies.

Thankfully senior management recognize these types for what they are, and largely ignore them
Also thankfully, the right of FN's to reinstate their former harvests of these animals cannot be affected by the whinings of the ignorant & uninformed.

So, Carrying On...
Samples are being analyzed right now, and we can expect results from that in the next little while.
Then onward and upwards.

Cheers,
Nog
 
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