Posted under Seal Hunt
Yesterday (30th April) the Canadian Coast Guard ship CCGS Des Groseilliers rammed the Sea Shepherd vessel the Farley Mowat.
The Coast Guard vessel CCGS Des Groseilliers ordered the Farley Mowat to leave Canadian waters and to not approach any sealing operation stating that a permit is required from the Canadian government to observe the seals being slaughtered.
The Farley Mowat responded by saying; “permits. We don’t need no stinkin’ permits.”
The Coast Guard had ordered the Farley Mowat to not approach the area where seals are being slaughtered. When the Farley Mowat did not comply, the Coast Guard rammed the vessel near the port aft stern area. After the Farley Mowat stopped in the ice, the Coast Guard rammed the ship a second time in the same area of the ship causing damage to the plates in that area.
The Coast Guard has demonstrated extreme recklessness with this move. The crew of the Farley Mowat were engaged in documenting the slaughter of seals. They were not interfering with the hunt.
“I’m beginning to wonder if anyone on the bridge of the Groseilliers has a license to command a ship,” said Captain Alex Cornelissen. “The incompetence of the Coast Guard has already cost the lives of four sealers this week-end and now they are ramming ships in dangerous ice conditions. This is unbelievable. It’s like the Coast Guard has declared war on seal defenders and the sealers are collateral damage.”
On the 29th March, four Magadalen Island sealers died when their 12 meter aluminum hulled boat the L’Acadien II capsized while being towed through heavy ice by the Coast Guard icebreaker Sir William Alexander. Bruno-Pierre Bourque one of the two survivors of the L’Acadien II, blamed the tragedy on excessive speed and lack of attention by the Coast Guard.
The boat had lost steerage about 40 miles North of Cape Breton Island. The Canadian Coast Guard responded to its distress signal and placed the vessel under tow.
Canadian Coast Guard spokesperson Mike Voigt defended the Coast Guard saying there are no regulations for towing in the ice and the Coast Guard has little experience in towing vessels through the ice.
“This is incredible,” said Captain Paul Watson, himself a former member of the Canadian Coast Guard. “The government of Canada allows hundreds of small non-ice class vessels to navigate in the most hostile waters on earth in heavy ice and they then say they have no contingency plans to deal with rescuing these same vessels. Perhaps if they spent less time making plans to prevent the documentation of the seal slaughter and more time being concerned about protecting human lives, these men would not have died.”
Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd and a former member of the Canadian Coast Guard, said, I find it incredible that the Coast Guard would place a small boat like that in tow behind a powerful icebreaker in such heavy ice conditions without first taking the crew onboard. They deliberately placed those men in an unsafe situation, and there should be a full inquiry into the circumstances that have led to the deaths of these four men.
On the 28th March, over 100 sealers headed out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence from the Magdalen Islands on 16 small boats. In addition to the one that has already sunk, three other sealing vessels are in trouble in the waters off Cape Breton, with two of them taking on water and the third broken down with mechanical problems.
In his efforts to further his own political ambitions, Loyola Hearn is sending these sealers into treacherous ice conditions in unsafe vessels, and the Canadian government has demonstrated that they do not have the resources to come to their rescue efficiently, said Captain Watson. It appears that the government is more concerned about keeping Sea Shepherd from documenting the slaughter of seals than they are about protecting the lives of Canadian fishermen.
The following are eye-witness accounts from crewmembers onboard the Farley Mowat.The very witnessing of these events is considered illegal by the Canadian government.
We encountered the sealing vessel the Cathy Erlene, registered to Sydney NS. Upon approach we saw two small aluminum boats carrying two men each darting from ice floe to ice floe searching for baby seals. It seemed they had a system. The barbarians on the Cathy Erlene were cruising through the ice searching for the few seal pups there were. They carried on their disgusting massacre carelessly firing upon the unsuspecting babies, their only goal to find and maim the infants. We witnessed two helpless victims, meters from the ship writhing in agony, hot blood spilling onto the ice and heard their cries as they continued to suffer for a good long time awaiting the small boats to arrive and fulfill their doom. Stepping onto the ice the babies, still alive turn their heads to the approaching man with a club. There is nothing humane about this massacre. What I saw today I will never forget, their cries will fill my thoughts and torture my soul. I can say I am truly embarrassed to be of the same race as these cowards and ashamed to be a Canadian today.
-Shannon Mann, Canada
Nothing prepared me for this, no video or previous encounter with the sealers on the ice. I watched in horror and disgust as two murderers clammered from their small boat, club in hand, and smashed in the skull of a baby harp seal. For an hour or so my memories are fuzzy with blood, abuse and worst of all the cries of seals as they are brutally killed. We will do whatever we can to expose this unnecessary, disgusting slaughter of life. Canada can not continue to censor its dirty secret any longer.
- Laura Dakin UK
First sight of human life on the ice I see two men lifting a seal impaled through the neck onto a sealing boat… the seal was still moving. There was lots of ice covered with blood everywhere. There was a larger boat that the smaller boats were dropping off the seals to be skinned, one of the crew of the boat got up to wave smuggly at us. They were skinning them and throwing the seal carcasses back overboard. They call it a seal hunt but I don’t think walking up to a stationary seal and smashing its head in is hunting, it is an act of pure cruelty. No wonder they don’t want the rest of the world to see what is happening.
-Daniel Bishop, England
It is untrue to say that killing these seals is being done humanely. Today we have seen sealers shooting the baby seals to wound them so they can’t flee, beating them with wooden clubs then killing them by cutting the
arteries under their flippers. The seals die slowly and in pain. It is ahorrible thing to see.
- Dr Merryn Redenbach, Australia
When I woke this morning I looked through the port hole and saw red patches of blood on the ice and I knew the seal hunt had begun. On the deck I immediately saw a small boat and two men who stopped on a little piece of ice in order to slaughter an innocent baby harp seal. Actually there were two small boats and one sealing ship. The hunters carried a hakapik and bashed the seal’s head. Some of the seals were still alive when they were delivered back to the sealing ship where they were finally skinned.
- Anne Fourier, France
And here you can see a Coast Guard vessel running over a seal on the ice
