Canadian Authorities Arrest Seal Hunt Observers, Seize Vessel

Acting for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Coast Guard boarded the Dutch-registered Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship Farley Mowat on Saturday.

Watson says the ship was in international waters and beyond Canada's reach when black-clad Mounties brandishing submachine-guns boarded the ship.

Canadian law enforcement officers approach the Farley Mowat. (Photo courtesy Sea Shepherd Conservation Society)

They seized the vessel and arrested the crew for alleged Fisheries Act violations.

Captain Alexander Cornelissen, who is from the Netherlands, and First Officer Peter Hammarstedt appeared in court Sunday. They are accused of steering the Farley Mowat to within 900 meters of the seal hunt. This is a violation of marine mammal regulations unless a permit to observe is granted, but the Farley Mowat had no permit.

Cornelissen and Hammarstedt must each post $5,000 bail.

Canadian author Farley Mowat, 86, for whom the ship was named, has donated the $10,000 to bail out the two crewmembers, said Sea Shepherd founder Captain Paul Watson in Sydney.

They are expected to be released on bail today. The charges could result in fines of up to $100,000, or up to one year in jail, or both.

The rest of the crew-members now are waiting at the courthouse on a hunger strike in solidarity with Cornelissen and Hammarstedt.

The Farley Mowat will be kept in the custody of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans until the court orders the release of the vessel upon posting of security, according to the department.

The crew members aboard the Dutch-registered vessel were documenting the Canadian sea hunt, and obtained video footage of sealers skinning young seals alive that will be used to influence the European Parliament to ban import of Canadian seal products, Watson told CTV News in Sydney.

"It is these images of brutal sadistic slaughter on the ice floes that Canada is desperate to keep hidden," said Watson. "What the Sea Shepherd crew have witnessed over the last two weeks has exposed the lies of Canadian government claims that the seal slaughter is humane.

Sealers haul a seal aboard their boat by a hook through its head. (Photo by Greg Hager courtesy Sea Shepherd Conservation Society)

"Canadian Minister of Fisheries Loyola Hearn authorized an assault on a Dutch registered vessel in international waters in order to detract from the tragedy his department was responsible for two weeks ago when four sealers drowned while under tow by the Canadian Coast Guard," Watson said.

Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn claims the Farley Mowat was boarded in Canadian waters.

The four sealers died in an incident that began on March 28, when L'Acadien II, a fishing vessel out to hunt seals, broke down in the ice northeast of Neil's Harbour, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. In the early hours of Saturday, the vessel capsized while under tow by a Coast Guard icebreaker. Two crewmembers were rescued, but three were drowned. One crewmember, Carl Aucoin, and the vessel itself are still missing at sea and recovery efforts discontinued April 10.

Watson is seeking an end to the Canadian seal hunt that he has been fighting since the mid-1970s. He and members of the Farley Mowat crew say that when the European lawmakers and the public understand the facts, the seal hunt will come to an end.

Sea Shepherd crewmember David Nickarz wrote in his shipboard blog on April 6, "The minister of fisheries ... claims that we have endangered the lives of sealers by coming too close to them, breaking ice under their feet and turning our water cannons on them. This is all a complete fabrication. Not only is it a lie, but there is no evidence to back it up."

A Canadian Coast Guard vessel runs over a young seal. March 30, 2008. (Photo by Greg Hager courtesy Sea Shepherd Conservation Society)

"On the other hand," wrote Nickarz, "we have video evidence of the coast guard ramming us, putting our lives in danger. We have video evidence of seals being skinned alive and run down by the coast guard."

European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas is "looking into the nature of the inhumane killing of seals," and is drafting the text of a law to ban imports of all seal products resulting from hunts where animals suffer that will be presented before June.

In 2007, the Netherlands and Belgium independently banned imports of seal products over concern about cruelty in the seal hunts.

Canada is fighting those bans, and in addition, late last month a delegation of Canadian officials and seal hunters visited European officials to lobby on behalf of the seal hunt.

Minister Hearn, who represents Laborador and Newfoundland in the Canadian Parliament, says, "The seal hunt is a humane, sustainable, and legal activity, and our government is committed to protecting the safety and security of sealers."

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved.