Update/Week
1 - South African Seal Campaign - A call to ban
guns during fishing trips to sea.
31st
July 2005, it has now been two weeks since I
sent a letter to the Minister Van Schalkwyk of
the Department of Environmental Affairs and
Tourism, requesting an urgent meeting to discuss
the illegal and criminal shooting of protected
Cape Fur Seals.in South African coastal waters,
by commercial fisherman licenced by his
department. Besides an acknowledgement of my
letter, not a word or reply or even a peep, has
come from his department.
It
has now been a week since Helen Bamford's
article "plea to ban guns during fishing
trips to sea" appeared in the Weekend Argus
Newspaper. Across the South African media,
silence. No enquires from reporters or any
follow up reporting, nothing. Perhaps the South
African media thinks there is no real public
interest in the fact that fishermen have been
shooting innocent seals for decades or perhaps
it is the fact, that our cities and towns are so
awash with high crime rates and a gun culture,
that shooting of a seal is just another accepted
way of doing things and life, until this crime
affects you.
For
those of you that don't know me, my name is
Francois Hugo and since 1999, I have been
protecting, conserving and rescuing Cape Fur
Seals at the tip of Africa. At 42, and for the
remainder of my life-time, I am only going to
call on you to assist these seals with two
things. The current campaign to have guns banned
that are currently being taken to sea on fishing
trips to kill protected seals illegally, and the
second to follow later, is to campaign to have
seals returned to their largest offshore and
most important island, named after them, which
has also been declared a world heritage site in
1999, and from which they are currently extinct
and banned from.
Behind
the scenes however, rumour has it, things are
hotting up. The press is strangely not very
pleased that the worldwide response to this
campaign from seal supporters, from Australia,
US, Canada, UK, Turkey, Belgium, Holland and
China, is blocking up their in-box emails. One
reporter even complained to me, that I should
not have given out her email address. "I
have work to do and these incoming emails are
just disrupting my work, they are just the same
letter from different people", she
replied. The nerve of this reporter, here she
has a breaking public response of concern, and
she finds it an annoyance, imagine what an
annoyance it is to a seal that has been
innocently shot whilst simply trying to survive
in his own world, injured or killed for life.
Another television program manager has blocked
his in-box to anymore incoming Seal Campaign
emails, I can only imagine how successful or
unsuccessful his career in television news will
be with a response like this.
THE
EVERYDAY REALITY OF COMMERCIAL FISHING
SEAL
TRAPPED ON TRAWL NET - BEATEN AND CLUBBED BEFORE
CUTTING THE NET AROUND
AND
DUMPED OVERBOARD DROWNING IN THE PROCESS
REVENGEFUL
ANTICS OF COMMERCIAL FISHERMAN - CATCHING BABY
SEALS DURING A TRAWL - CUT THE NET AROUND THEM
STILL ENTANGLED AND DUMPED OVERBOARD. ONE LONE
SURVIVOR STRUGGLES TO CARRY THE BURDEN OF HIS
FOUR OTHER DEAD SIBLINGS
In
2003, Deputy Director Horst Kleinschmidt of
Marine and Coastal Management, a department of
the Department of Environmental Affairs and
Tourism "Some
fishers shoot seals, injurying or killing them.
We are equally opposed to such conduct. They do
this believing that seals consume catches they
feel are theirs. Their behaviour is uninformed
and demands unequivocal condemnation. If anyone
shoots at seals, we will prosecute. We do not
condone conduct of this kind and ask people to
come forward with evidence of this".
In 1973,
the
Cape Fur Seals became protected under the Sea
Birds and Seals Protection Act no.46 and it
became a criminal offence to "pursue
or shoot at or wilfully disturb, kill or capture
a seal.
Yet,
in 34-years of protection, not a single
fisherman has ever been arrested or convicted
for killing thousands of innocent seals, instead
they have been rewarded.
Currently
before our Cabinet for signature is a New Seal
Protection draft document, and in it contains
the following, Incidental capture by fisheries
(3.1.1.3) - Restrictions will be implemented on
the use or carrying of fire-arms, ammunition or
explosives abroad fishing vessels, with a view
to the control of the illegal shooting of seals
at sea. Another Act, is also before Cabinet, the
long-term fishing rights of fisherman.
In
the Constitution of South Africa, no mention is
made of guns. However under the Bill of Rights
it clearly states, Environment, everyone has the
right a) to an environment that is not harmful
to their health or well-being; and b) to have
the environment protected, for the benefit of
present and future generations, through
reasonable legislative and other measures that
ii) promote conservation.
This
South African fishing "gun-free"
campaign is a simple one to succeed. I know
this, because in 2000, after rejecting
applications by both myself and Seashepherd
International, to undertake Seal Rescue in South
Africa, in an effort to prevent Cape Fur Seals
being rescued for the first time in 27-years of
becoming a protected species. Marine and Coastal
Management simply wrote a regulation, had it
signed by parliament and within two weeks, it
now became a Criminal Offence to rescue a dying
starving seal by feeding it.
There
is not much that we can do against this 5
billion rand, 30 000 strong fishing industry,
that will stop some of these cruel sadist
criminal fisherman from inflicting such terrible
pain on seals, like overfishing or like drowning
them in their nets, or clubbing them to death
once hoisted abroad entrapped in netting, or
ripping open their jaws with steel gaffs, or
impaling them on large steel fish hooks, or
discarding or polluting our seas, with loose
netting, fishing line or nylon rope, but we can
do something about guns, and we can stop guns
being taken to sea during licenced fishing
trips.
This
is where you come in. Send this email to
everyone you know and take one minute to write
to the below list of officials and media, and
tell them what you think and want. Show these
ignorant, non-caring and selfish individuals,
that we care! and the true meaning of Email
Spam. Close down their in-box emails, until they
understand that nothing is more important than
stopping this. If you do this, then after
my conversation with the Advocate Gary Pienaar
of Public Protectors Office on Saturday morning,
he has promised that if I have not had an
official response from the Minister by the 8th
of August 2005, I can come in and file an
official complaint.
Your
Wish List :
The
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism :
Mr Martinus Van Schalkwyk (Personal assistant)
[email protected]
For
the Seals
Francois
Hugo
Seal
Alert-SA