B.C. group hopes commercial seal hunt gets green light

B.C. seal meat could soon be appearing in seafood shops andrestaurant menus if a proposed commercial seal and sea lion hunt gets the green light at a meeting ThursdayinVancouver.

ThePacific Balance Pinnipeds Society (PBPS) has submitted the plan to Fisheries and Ocean Canada and the two parties will be discussing the fine details of how a hunt would work things like harvesting, transport, processingand marketing.

"[DFO] need more discussion,which I understand because this is the first proposal to harvest [seals] to hit their desks so it's brand new to them," said Ken Pearce, a member of PBPS.

"It's certainly not as sensitive a subject that it was two or three years ago, but in DFO's eyes it's still sensitive re: the public so they want to make sure they've got the i'sdotted and t's crossed."

The society wasestablished in July 2018and includes a number of First Nations, commercial and sport fishers andfur industry representatives.

Test for toxicity

A critical step inlaunching a hunt is first establishing that the meat and blubber will besafe for human consumption.

In November, the society announced that First Nations' fishers wouldharvest 30 animals for toxicity screening, but the plan was put on hold because of the price tag$1,000 per animal.

"That's $1,000 times 30 animals," said Pearce. "We don't have that amount yet so we decided to wait until we get a green light and then when we apply for funding it will be automatic."

Pearcesays there is existingslaughterhouse capacity to process the animals in B.C.,and that buyers some international are already lining up to purchasemeat, blubber and fur.

Sea Lions feeding in fishing nets

6 years ago

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Many Sea Lions are caught in fishing nets, as they try to feed.

The society also claims the hunt is the quickest way to reverse declining salmon stocks in the regionby reducing the overpopulation of seals and sea lions.

Both animalseat salmon and many believethe high numbers there's an estimated 100,000 seals in B.C. waters are also out-competing thestruggling southern resident killer whales for their prime source of food: chinook salmon.

"We can look at opening up harvesting and starting a new industry," commercial fisherman TomSewidtold CBC in December."Since the [West Coast] seal cull ended in the 1970s, the population has exploded."

Hunted for thousands of years

Sewid, who is a society director andmember of the Kwakwaka'wakwgroup of Indigenous peoples, said the animals have been hunted for thousands of years.

Recent decadeswith little or no huntinghave been an anomaly, hesaid, pointing to research that shows sealnumbersare even higher now than in the 1800s.

Pearce says in the first year of operation, the commercial seal hunt would need to take "baby steps." He estimates a harvest of 2,000 seals and 100 sea lions would be a good number tostart with.

"The worst thing we could do with this is charge out of the gate and fall flat on our face," he said.

A request to speak with someone from Fisheries and Oceans Canada was not responded to.