UPDATE - Court ruling keeps Canada seal pups safe from hunt
Date: 25-Feb-02
Country: CANADA
Author: Randall Palmer
The high court unanimously upheld the right of the federal government to ban the commercial hunt of baby seals, averting a likely clash with Europe if the ban had been overturned.
Active campaigns by European environmentalists capitalizing on images of clubbed seal pups - dewy-eyed whitecoats with blood streaming from their mouths - led Ottawa to ban their commercial hunting in the 1980s.
A Newfoundland sealer, Ford Ward, took his case to Canada's high court to argue that only the provinces, and not the federal government, had jurisdiction over such matters. But the Supreme Court unanimously disagreed.
"This is a gold-medal victory for Canada's wildlife," said Rick Smith, Canadian director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which intervened against Ward at the court.
"This is a great day for seal conservation, a great day for animal welfare across the country, it's a great day for Canadians who care about animals."
The Canadian constitution specifically authorizes the federal government to regulate fisheries. But Ward argued that since what was banned was the sale of pelts, it related to property rights, which is under provincial jurisdiction.
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin noted that the ban had been introduced in response to severe international pressure, and was designed to save the overall market for Canadian fish as well as to preserve what was left of a market for seals.
In her judgment, she pointed to 30 years of anti-sealing campaigns, which led, for starters, to a ban in 1983 by the European Union on the import of whitecoat and blueback skins.
"The reaction to this harvest (of baby seals) destroyed the traditional seal markets and was threatening the markets for Canadian fish products abroad," she wrote.
She said banning the sale of the skins was the only practical way to stop the commercial hunt, and this was justified as part of the overall regulation of the fisheries.
"This was done to preserve the economic viability of not only the seal fishery, but the Canadian fisheries in general," she said.
The Canadian government continues to allow the annual killing of 275,000 adult harp seals, the species the young whitecoats belong to, and 10,000 adult hooded seals, the species the bluebacks belong to. The total population of the two species is estimated at more than five million.
The fatty acids in seals are used to make pharmaceuticals, their skins are used for clothing and the meat is a traditional Newfoundland food. The government also argues that the seals have combined with overfishing by man to decimate the cod stocks that used to abound in the North Atlantic.
