Camille Labchuk

It’s extremely disappointing — but not surprising — that Nova Scotia’s NDP government today furthered efforts to erode the protected status of the Scaterie Island wilderness sanctuary — a provincially-protected area a few miles off the coast of Cape Breton. Included in the sanctuary is Hay Island, a tiny speck of an island that is home to a stunning wildlife spectacle each winter, when grey seals gather on Hay Island to give birth to their seal pups. Tragically, sealers have set their sights on the pelts of these baby seals and slaughter them annually with wooden bats and boxcutters.

Grey seal pups on Hay Island, February 2009. (c) Camille Labchuk

As part of a wilderness sanctuary, Hay Island is regulated under the NS Wilderness Protection Act and thus plant and animal life found on the island may not be removed or damaged. The Act also specifies that hunting will be permitted only if it can be shown it will aid in the restoration of biodiversity in the protected area. The NS government has disregarded this law in the past by offering zero evidence hunting is necessary, and is now apparently attempting to legitimize this sickening slaughter by carving out a gruesome exemption to the rule. The NDP’s amendments to the Act would give Fisheries and Environment Minister Sterling Belliveau the ultimate power to permit the hunt, and there’s little doubt what Belliveau will do with this new power as he was a vocal support of slaughtering grey seals as an opposition MLA and fisheries critic. (As an aside, it’s one hell of a conflict of interest that this guy has responsibility for both the Fisheries and Environment portfolios. On one hand, he’s responsible for furthering the economic exploitation of the ocean, but on the other, he’s supposedly responsible for protecting the environment. It’s kind of obscene, really.)

Allowing grey seals to be slaughtered is extremely ecologically irresponsible, as grey seal populations very low and are only beginning to recover from virtual extirpation near the middle of the last century. Furthermore, the EU ban on seal products has drastically driven down prices of seal pelts. In fact, sealers only killed 200 grey seals on Hay Island in 2009 (as opposed to more than a thousand in 2008) because the markets simply weren’t there. That the NDP would go to the trouble of facilitating the slaughter at this particular point in time indicates they are merely pandering to fishing interests, instead of considering what is best for local economies and for ecosystems.

Grey seal on Hay Island, NS, February 2009. (c) Camille Labchuk

I visited Hay Island in 2009, and witnessed what is truly a stunning and unique wildlife spectacle. Recalling the chilly yet heartwarming afternoon I spent surrounded by hundreds of newborn and adult seals, it’s impossible to understand why NS doesn’t embrace this spectacle of nature and consider ecotourism as a source of coastal revenue. People will pay top dollar to view wildlife, and ecotourism has the potential to bring in far more more revenue than the meager amount of blood money generated by the inhumane and unnecessary kill.

Finally, for me this move drives home the point that there’s no substantive difference between the NDP, Liberals and Conservatives. Each time the NDP forms government, it ends up governing exactly like the other old-line parties. Gutting NS’s wilderness protection legislation to facilitate the bludgeoning of baby animals is case in point.