Ocean animals must die for the sins of humanity
The Vancouver Sun
Wed 23 Apr 2003
Page: A19
Section: Editorial
Byline: Paul Watson
Source: Special to the Sun

All over the world, fishing communities are screaming for the heads of seals, dolphins, pelicans and even whales.

The reason for this is grossly diminished populations of commercial fish. Simply put, most of the world's commercial fisheries have collapsed or are in a state of collapse.

The reason for the collapse has been a combination of mismanagement and corruption within governmental fishery departments, industrial over-fishing, increasing demand from steadily rising human populations and just plain greed.

Instead of facing up to the real reasons, government bureaucrats, fishermen and the public have chosen to scapegoat other species that rely on fish for their survival.

Because of this, Canadians are engaged in a massive slaughter of seals on the Atlantic coast and clamouring for a seal lion kill on the Pacific coast. The Namibians are killing some 60,000 seals each year. The Japanese are slaughtering dolphins; fishermen in California are killing and maiming pelicans and cormorants; and the Norwegians, Icelanders and the Japanese are steadily increasing their illegal whale kills.

In fact, in every coastal community the story is the same. Kill the seals, kill the birds and kill the dolphins -- anything to save the fish.

Ironically, the diminishment of seals and other natural predators is directly contributing to a further decline in fish.

The reason for this is that marine mammals and birds eat fish and remove sick and weak species from the populations they prey upon. In the case of the harp seal, the seals remove species that prey upon cod and thus reduce predatory species having an impact on the cod. The fact is that the largest predators of fish are other fish. Seals, dolphins, pelicans and cormorants keep these populations in check and in balance.

Before modern global fishing, marine mammal and sea bird populations were much more populous than today. The seal population on the East Coast alone was close to 40 million only 500 years ago. And there was no shortage of fish. The cod have been reduced to one per cent of their original numbers in the last 500 years by the human species.

Let's put this in perspective. The worldwide population of all species of seals is about 28 million. Yet the worldwide population of domestic housecats is estimated to be about 80 million.

The housecat population of the U.S. alone consumes 2.9 million tons of fish each year. This means that South Africa's entire annual catch of fish is only 17 per cent of this 2.9-
million-ton requirement.

As seal conservationist Francois Hugo of South Africa puts it, "We are destroying our indigenous natural wildlife to feed an unchecked exotic domestic pet market."

It is also a tragedy that more than 50 per cent of all the fish taken from the sea are not eaten by people. Most of it is rendered into animal feed for cattle, chickens, pigs and, ironically, for farm-raised salmon. It takes 30 to 50 fish caught from the ocean to raise and market one farm-raised salmon.

Captain Jacques Cousteau told me not long before he died that "the oceans are dying in our time."

We must be insane to continue to pull the last of the fishes from the sea to feed domestic pets and livestock.

Most of these fish are the small fishes like the herring, and sand-eels -- the very fish that provide the foundation of the food chain for the larger fish. The North Sea sand-eel fishery alone has destroyed tens of thousands of puffins and this fishery is exclusively for the livestock feed trade.

If nations simply prohibited the taking of fish to feed livestock and pets, we would effectively cut the annual reduction of fish from our oceans by more than 50 per cent.

But it won't happen because there is much money to be made from selling these products and government bureaucrats and politicians do what they are told by the corporations that have the money and provide the jobs.

Unfortunately, this path has only one destination -- the silent seas, fished out, with whales, seals, birds, and turtles removed. A stagnant stinking cesspool of lifeless brine will be our legacy.

Captain Paul Watson is president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a non-profit organization that investigates violations of international laws and treaties protecting marine wildlife.