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UPDATE
No 2 - 8th August 2005
Thank
you all for your letters of support and to our
Minister. Please note this campaign to Ban Guns
at sea during Fishing in South Africa, is not a
request for funding or donations, it is simple
to show your concern, and to use your very
powerful vote, your letter, to bring about
change, and a civilized society. I ask no more
from you, except to ensure our votes count, and
succeed. This campaign is not about a few seals
being illegally killed. It is about the
systematic elimination of a species within an
unacceptable "way of life" for a
commercial industry, on a species of seal that
has developed over millions of years and is
endemic to this coastline. In the last 10-years,
this species has declined by over 50% already,
we are now witnessing the biggest mass death of
marine mammals, seals, the world has ever seen.
Extinction if this continues, cannot be far
away.
This
campaign has truly grown into an international
campaign to conserve these seals, with
supportive letter from IFAW-SA, Seashepherd
International, Marchig Trust, Canadian Voice for
Animals, ActionAgainstPoisoning, to name just a
few, and from Canada, US, Australia, Belgium,
Greece, Belgrade, Serbia,Turkey, UK, France,
China and Holland.
It
has now been 20-days since I sent my letter to
the Minister Van Schalkwyk of the department of
Environmental Affairs and Tourism on the 19th
July 2005. Besides an acknowledgement of my
letter (He did get it), absolutely not another
word. So I have addressed an Open Letter to him,
and attached a Power
Point Show, so that he cannot say he has not
been fully informed of the situation with Cape
Fur Seals in South Africa. Please feel free to
disperse this Power Point Show on the horrific
seal management in South Africa, far and wide,
until our Minister decides to officially address
this unacceptable state of affairs. You have my
promise, that I will continue to update and
inform you (weekly), until an acceptable Seal
Management Policy is in place, and you, I and
the seals, can enjoy our Natural Wildlife in a
civilized manner.
I
need to acknowledge, the incredible hard work
Earle Bingley of the Canadian Voice for Animals
and Jose and Marius of ActionAgainstPoisoning,
who have worked tirelessly to set-up a website
for the Seals with all the information and
contact details of this campaign, there is also
another Power Point Show to view, and please
don't forget to sign the Guest Book.
PS
: My deepest thanks to all those that have
signed the guest book, your comments are truly
motivational and will be used with my complaint
to the Public Protectors Office, this week.
Francois
Hugo Seal Alert-SA
OPEN
LETTER TO MINISTER MARTHINUS VAN SCHALKWYK
OF THE
DEPARTMENT
OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS AND TOURISM
It
has now been 20-days, and I still have not
received a reply. The mismanagement of the Cape
Fur Seals has gone on long enough. Reports by
the Public Protectors Office in this regard have
been sent to your office as far back as 2001,
two of them in fact.
Your
department of Marine and Coastal Management's
claims of a healthy, thriving seal population
off the coast of southern Africa, has become
rather a joke, amongst those of us with the
factual knowledge. Claims of 3.7% growth over
the past 100-years, are falling apart at the
seams of wildlife management as we speak.
Instead,
in just the last 10-years, the Cape Fur Seal
population has declined by over 50%, bringing
with it the biggest mass starvation and death of
Marine Mammals, seals, the world has ever seen.
You should be ashamed of your current
management. With over 1000 ha of protected
offshore island land, under the Seabirds and
Seals Protection no 46 of 1973, seals today, are
only found breeding on the smallest awash rocks
or just 1% of these protected islands/rocks.
Even our biggest and only mainland Seal Colony,
Kleinsee, which used to account for over 70% of
the South African seal population, which
shamefully until 1990, was used as South
Africa's biggest commercial sealing colony, has
remained excluded and overlooked in the Act.
Please
therefore re-assess your management policies. As
I understand fishermen account for 0.01% of the
South African population and contribute less
than 0.5% to GDP. In effect 3000 licenced
commercial fishing skippers are holding the 42
million South Africans, and hundreds of millions
of International travelers to ransom.
Under
the Constitution of South Africa, you have a
duty to conserve and protect our natural
environment and our heritage, with your current
Cape Fur Seal Management, you are clearly not
doing so. Start considering the needs of 99.9%
of the South African population, if South Africa
is truly a democratically administered and
elected country.
Your
silence, in allowing thousands of fishing
skippers licenced by your department, to carry
guns to sea, with the sole intention to kill
protected seals illegally, is a disgrace. For
you to continue to ignore this Criminal Activity
is unconstitutional.
Therefore
please transmit your policies on seals.
Francois
Hugo Seal Alert-SA
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