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Index of Subjects <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head> <meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"/> </head><body style=""> <div> Hans, </div> <div>    I feel your pain and disgust at the slaughter of seals, but I am  afraid that buying Sambro Island and keeping people away from it will not resolve the issue. Seals can be easily shot from a boat, and you cannot simply ban boating around the island. Besides, who might enforce such a ban? Ultimately the solution lies in public education. I know of several seal colonies in the province that are a bit of a local tourist attraction, visited by tourist boats. </div> <div>    Dusan Soudek </div> <div>   </div> <div> <br/>> On May 11, 2015 at 9:04 AM Hans <htoom@hfx.eastlink.ca> wrote: <br/>> <br/>> <br/>> Several years ago I found a harbour seal with gun shot wounds dying on a <br/>> beach in Crystal Crescent Beach Provincial Park. I assumed at the time <br/>> that this was an isolated incident. Not so it seems. <br/>> <br/>> Shotgun blasts have come from the direction of Sambro Island for years <br/>> but I only recently found out what is happening there. Apparently, and <br/>> this uncorroborated, fishermen possibly with permits are killing seals <br/>> and their pups. The really disturbing part is that shotguns will not <br/>> kill grey seals or even harbour seals but will cause them such pain and <br/>> agony that they eventually drown after suffering horribly. <br/>> <br/>> Since this happens with a secret handshake between the Department of <br/>> Fisheries and Oceans(also uncorroborated) and local fisherman it begs <br/>> the question on how many more secret handshakes are occurring and how <br/>> many other seal colonies are being butchered in this manner. The coast <br/>> guard base at Sambro Harbour certainly knows about this activity since <br/>> the gun shots can be heard all around the area. <br/>> <br/>> The answer to this depravity is simple. Buy the island from the Coast <br/>> Guard and close it to all human traffic. Only a small portion of land is <br/>> needed to host the lighthouse itself. Which brings up another act of <br/>> stupidity and barbarism. This time by the Coast Guard. They hover their <br/>> helicopters over the lighthouse regularly for extended periods for what <br/>> purpose I do not know but this could only be disruptive if not <br/>> destructive to the Arctic Tern colony. <br/>> <br/>> I recognize that the folks on this list can do nothing but perhaps, just <br/>> perhaps, this story can be followed up by a journalist if the <br/>> dissemination of this information is wide enough. <br/>> <br/>> To quote a famous Newfoundlander John Crosbie, "I didn't take the fish <br/>> out of the (expletives deleted) water". When John Cabot first came to <br/>> these shores he had to plow through the cod so the fallacious argument <br/>> that the seals ate all the fish does not hold water(sorry). The <br/>> fisherman took the fish out of the water. <br/>> <br/>> Laura and I will make a contribution to the Nova Scotia Nature Trust to <br/>> help them buy this island if hopefully they will take on this project <br/>> and then take this island away from our government(s) and close it to <br/>> humans except under supervision. <br/>> <br/>> Hans <br/>> <br/>> -- <br/>> Hans Toom <br/>> http://www.hanstoom.com <br/>> http://www.hanstoom.com/blog <br/>> </div> </body></html>
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