Quick note

Just a quick note to say that I was unable to publish my English language version of my blog here the past couple of days. I'm now slowly translating what I've published on www.stopdeknuppels.nl and posting them back-dated for the appropriate days. I thus invite you to read my eye-witness accounts of the horrors of the seal hunt in the other entries!

The killing fields

Once again, my day started really early. At 6 am I crawl out of bed and attempt to induce a state of consciousness under the shower. In an hour’s time I’ve got to be ready to fly out to the ice fields, but before all this I’m due to be interviewed on Dutch radio. With yesterday’s horrors still fresh in my mind, it’s easy to communicate what I’ve been experiencing. Everyone is shocked by how the knife wielding sealer went after us yesterday. Yet the last 24 hours have been so surreal that I’ve hardly paused to think about how frightening this actually was.

At about 8 am we finally clamber into Guillame’s helicopter. He’s a charming Quebecois who is not afraid to set his ‘copter down on the ice floes. It doesn’t take long until we’re flying over open water and once again admiring the fabulous icescapes. We start looking for some sealing action. Yesterday we were surprised to discover that there were only about 25 boats still out there. Many probably have already left for the Magdalen Islands, heavily laden with the pelts of slaughtered harp seals. A couple of boats sank in the storm and other, mainly smaller boats, gave up once the weather conditions became so treacherous. This all means that it’s difficult to estimate the scale of the hunt. On the first day there were about 70 boats that turned up to kill seals. The ice was simply drenched in blood. In the meantime, the traces of this have been largely washed away by the heavy rain and snow. Given that we huntwatchers were only able to take off yesterday, we are unsure of how much slaughter was actually taking place on the ice at the time. Rebecca Aldworth, our ice guide for today, thinks we are now getting a rather incomplete view of what’s going on since there are relatively few sealers busy clubbing deals and they are spread across a large area due to the fact that they have been stuck in the ice.

Whatever the case I’ve already seen enough sealing misery to get a good idea of how it all goes down here. We land near a sealing boat whose crew are busy ‘harvesting’ baby seals. A Coastguard chopper keeps a close eye on us and, after we land, we are approached by a RCMP agents and a couple of DFO officers who remind us to keep the 10 metre distance rule. They also go over to the sealers to check the length of their hakapiks. All this is going on while someone behind them clubs a three to four week old seal to death and another guy is skinning a couple of other unfortunate animals.

There is a group of four harp seal pups lying peacefully on the ice close by. Admiring their sheer beauty I take a few photos of them. Just a few minutes later one of the sealers walks up to them and mercilessly starts beating their skulls to a pulp. A couple of these animals hopelessly attempt to defend themselves and I hear them uttering cries of fear. It does them no good whatsoever. One by one he smashes their delicate skulls to pieces with his club without even checking to see whether the previous one he clubbed is already dead. Two of these clubbed seals are clearly still alive. One poor animal attempts to raise his head. When the sealer sees thus, he begins to club it again really hard. He them proceeds to skin them.

He’s seriously broken one of the key regulations for killing seals. He should have first checked whether the first seal was already dead by doing a blinking reflex test before going on to strike the next seal. He knows this, but obviously doesn’t give a damn about it. We call back the RCMP and DFO people to make a complaint. Even though the HSUS camera guys have got it all on tape, they refuse to do anything about this transgression. The seal butcher is just left to get on with his work unscathed. The authorities here truly do not give a shit about animal welfare.
Within 10 minutes there is little left of the beautiful seal that I had been admiring. As the sealer leaves, he drags the pelts behind him and we go over to inspect the carcass that remains. Everyone is highly disturbed by the sight of this tiny skinned carcass, which is still moving. It really looks like he is still breathing, but these are just post-mortem muscle spasms and movement of bodily gasses. Steam rises from his body. Once again I find myself silently apologising to this little fellow for what has been done to him. As I write I am haunted by the terrible image of this poor creature and a tear courses down my cheek.

The same thing happened yesterday. I remained completely calm on the ice. I just watched and photographed everything around me without getting emotional. I recognise this mechanism. It is the same one that always clicks into place when I witness animal suffering during my work on the animal ambulance. It’s not that the plight of animals doesn’t affect me – otherwise I’d never have become an animal activist – but there’s little point in getting sentimental about things while they are happening. If I break down and sob my heart out on the ice, I wouldn’t be able to document this mass destruction of animal life effectively. Only when I get back in front of my computer screen does the emotion begin to well up in me. Today thousands of seals have lost their lives simply because a bunch of senseless morons want to wear fur coats. That is certainly something worth crying about.

After having witnessed the slaughter and skinning of many harp seals by this one team, we decide to return to the helicopters to look for some other hunting activity. We quickly land close by and have to leave the chopper with the rotor blades still going. Guillame flys off to land somewhere further away from the sealers. The other team is already on the ice by the time we arrive. The sealers are not at all happy to see us. The coastguard helicopter with police and DFO people on board have already left the area. This means that these seal killers feel safe in approaching us aggressively waving their clubs and hakapiks as they go. It is a very threatening situation. We have to get to our other team quickly to give them strength in numbers. The ice is really unstable and impedes our progress. These men look terrifying, they are drenched in the blood of the seals that they have butchered and are screaming at us to fuck off. We keep retreating and they keep on coming at us. Andrew’s camera is nearly knocked out of his hands and a hakapik one of them is wielding makes contact with his ice stick. Afterwards he realises that his camera is now smeared with seal blood.

Now in a larger group we maintain our stand against these clubbers. They’re only challenging us, but there is always a risk that one of them will lose the plot and really do someone some physical damage with the tools that they are waving around. Rebecca quickly calls the RCMP by satellite phone. They arrive quickly. Naturally they argue that we have brought this all on ourselves and refuse to do anything with out complaint. It’s completely crazy. If one was threatened on the street by a group of people brandishing dangerous weapons, they’d be picked up immediately. However, on the ice the sealers seem to have carte blanche to do what the hell they like and the police can’t be bothered to enforce the laws of the land. We waste a lot of time giving our statements to the police.

We’re left standing on the ice under the blazing sun while we should be gathering more visual evidence of the horrors of the hunt. Of course the police know this damned well. The hunters too. This is why they orchestrate such situations. They’d like nothing better than to ensure that in the future the observers are only able to observe the hunt at a 25 metre distance. These kind of incidents make it easier for the Canadian authorities to argue that such measures are necessary to ensure the safety of hunt observers. Wouldn’t it just be better to take away the sealer’s licences when they threaten observers? This is exactly why the majority of such incidents between the huntwatchers and sealers go unreported to the authorities because this could adversely effect their ability to observe the hunt properly in the future.

Following this incident we have to cross back over the ice to where the helicopters have landed. To be perfectly honest I find walking on thin ice a hell of a lot more frightening that having a bunch of sealers coming at me with hakapiks and clubs! There is nothing quiet so scary as stepping on an unstable chunk of ice. Although one carries a stick to test the thickness of the ice, if it suddenly moves then you suddenly realise just how vulnerable you actually are stuck out on the ice floes in open water!

This was our last trip to the ice. Tomorrow we board a plane to Amsterdam via Montreal. As we fly back over the ice floes to Charlottetown, I can see hundreds of living harp seals moving across the ice. With all my heart I hope that these beautiful creatures will avoid the sealer’s weapons. In the evening I hear that the quota of 90,000 harp seals for the Gulf of St. Lawrence has been reached. The hunt here has now been officially closed. However, this does not mean that the seals left alive are now safe. Soon the ice will melt and they will have developed the right swimming skills to be able to swim towards the Atlantic Ocean where they will join the adult seal herd. On 12th April the commercial seal hunt will reopen on the inhospitable front off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. Armed with rifles and hooks to haul the animals out of the water, the sealers will go on to make up the rest of the quota of 319,000 harps seals and 10,000 hooded seals. The Canadian authorities are currently deciding the size of the quota for 2006. The way things are now going it looks like the death warrants of more seals than ever will be signed. As far as I’m concerned the only acceptable quota is zero.

Attack of the knife-wielding sealer

As I awake, the sun is streaming through the windows of my enormous attic room. That’s a good sign. I also can’t hear any wind, so I guess that the storm has now passed. By the time I arrive at the HSUS’s offices, the first group is already out there on the ice. Yesterday I suffered a real dip when it turned out that the helicopters couldn’t take off at all. Luckily I wasn’t the only one left wandering around looking dejected. We’re all so heavily involved in this sealing campaign and the fate of the poor seals that it hits us all hard to just be left hanging around waiting.

This morning someone tried to play an April Fool’s joke by sending the HSUS office an e-mail saying that Canadian fisheries minter Geoff Regan had organised a press conference announcing an immediate end to the hunt, Very convincing, though no-one could quite believe it. It took a minute for the penny to drop and realise just what date it was! It was less amusing to hear that the Sea Shepherd crew were due to be arraigned at 11.00 am. I still find it scandalous how these guys are being treated. Not only are they attacked by sealers wielding hakapiks, but then they are arrested instead of their attackers.

At noon the time has come. I’m back in a swelteringly hot survival suit on the way to the heliport. Today it’s really going to happen. When we arrive the morning crew has already returned. Everybody is talking ten to the dozen about the fantastic film material they’ve shot and their exciting adventures. Just as the Sea Shepherd crew yesterday, our colleagues were forced to flee from a bunch of sealers brandishing hakapiks. With all of their heavy camera equipment this must have been extremely dangerous since they were seriously impeded by the stuff they were carrying. At such times one also doesn’t bother checking whether the ice below your feet is truly safe. Later would I discover for myself just how scary such as situation can be when a sealer decides to go after our group with a skinning knife!

It has been a really heavy day. Nevertheless, the day begins really serenely. The five of us board a helicopter together with Guillame, our pilot. He first gives us a safety talk and explains to us, amongst other things, how to avoid being decapitated by the rotor blades. I develop a healthy respect for this technology and make a mental note to do everything he says. Strangely enough, in my mind helicopters and seals are inextricably bound. The last time I got into one was to travel to the Isles of Scilly, some 45km from the most South-westerly point of England, where I could observe a colony of grey seals from a small boat. I fondly remember watching them lazily sunning themselves on the rocks and cavorting in the water. This helicopter flight to the seals will be quite different. At least 300.000 harp seals will never get the chance to enjoy life as an adult seal this year.

As we fly towards the Magdalen Islands across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, we suddenly see hundreds of young harp seals crawling across the ice. The noise of the helicopter appears to disturb them. Most of these animals are beaters, but there are also still some Ragged Jackets to be seen from the air. Some beaters have even begun to learn how to swim. Every now and then you see a small head emerge out of the water. My sheer enjoyment of these seals and this magical ice world is short-lived. It does not take long before we see the first signs of the bloody hunt of these beautiful marine mammals. We can see long trails of fresh blood stain the pristine ice, hundreds of skinned carcasses left by the sealers to rot on the ice and, of course, the sealers boats too.

Before we make our first attempt to land on the ice, we must complete a very different mission. We have to fly to the Sea Shepherd to not only collect their film material, but also to deliver Lisa Shalom, one of the arrestees, back safely to her colleagues. Being a Canadian citizen she was released earlier than her colleagues. It’s great to finally see the beautifully painted Farley Mowat for real and to meet one of her courageous crew. Just behind the Farley Mowat there is the threatening presence of a Coastguard ice-breaker. It is clear that the stand-off that has been going on for days still continues.

We land on the ice in the neighbourhood of a large sealing boat that clearly has trouble getting through the ice. Her crew is busy clubbing and skinning seals. We put on special cramp-ons and are given special sticks to test the ice in front us. In some places the ice is very thin, or there are fissures in it, or it is so badly broken op that one has to jump from one floe to the other. This scares me shitless, especially when at one point I come into difficulties when one foot slips into a crevice. Fortunately Pierre, my ice guide, come to my aid.

As we get closer to the sealers we end up having a good laugh. One of them decides to drop his trousers and moon at us. He then turns around and pretends to jerk himself off. It’s absurd. None of us are impressed and we only find it hilarious. He realises this and gives up his attempt to taunt us and gets back to skinning seals. There’s certainly nothing amusing about that.
Close by is a seal of about three weeks old. We spend some time taking photos of him. Although I’m enjoying the fact that I can see him so close-up, I know damned well that this defenceless, sweet little animal will soon meet his death at the hands of a sadistic sealer. These people simply hate the seals. They regard them as swimming cockroaches that rob them of their income from fishing. The DFO upholds this myth even though there is no real scientific evidence to prove that the seals are responsible for the depletion of fish stocks in this area. I feel a wave of emotion flooding over me as I observe this young creature. I’m overcome by intense sadness that he has been born into a world where he has little chance of reaching adulthood.

I’m fortunately distracted by the film recordings that the HSUS set up for us. Krista van Velzen and I ask each other questions in front of the cameras with a young seal and a sealing vessel in the background. We then move on to another place where seals are being killed. We have to keep a 10 metre distance at all times from the sealers, but I can see everything up close through the powerful lens of my camera. Their clubs smash down on the delicate skulls of defenceless seals and then they drag their bodies, sometimes still writhing, to a pile where they are skinned by someone else. A skidoo stands ready to transport all of the pelts back to their ships. The ice is drenched in the blood of the animals that they have dragged back to the pile using their hakapiks.

As we walk a little further I encounter two freshly killed seals that have not yet been collected. They are still so warm that steam rises from their bloodied bodies. I take of my glove and stroke one of them across the back. Her spotted skin is so soft and she is so terribly small. They are still babies. I find myself silently apologising to them for the crimes committed against them by my fellow humans. These animals have done nothing to deserve this. As I touch her head, I can feel that her skull has been shattered. It is supposed to be hard, but is instead as soft as a sponge. How can someone do such a terrible thing to a defenceless creature? Why did she have to die just because some witless individual wants to wear her skin on her own back?

Today I seek refuge in my photography. In creating a visual record of the atrocities that I have seen. Looking at the world through a lens gives one a different view on life. Only when I get back to my room and upload these images do I actually burst into tears. Especially when I see the images of these two young seals. I suspect that this image will continue to be etched into my memory forever.
I also take impressive pictures from the air. Of ships that are encircles with cadavers and ice that is completely stained with their blood, but also of our own helicopters and the spectacular scenery.

The major drama begins when we land on the ice close to a group of sealers. We head in their direction to film and photograph what they are up to. They are none too pleased and suddenly a couple of them start to come at us. One of them is brandishing a huge knife that he has just been using to skin baby seals. We retreat to be able to keep the necessary 10 metre distance. This is also at the expense of our own safety. We have to move so fast that we are no longer so careful about where we are stepping. This crazy sealer keeps coming at us waving his knife and swearing at us in French. He most likely comes from the Magdalen Islands, whose residents have a serious reputation for being aggressive towards huntwatchers. We come to a halt as we get close to out helicopters. This nutter stands there opposite Rebecca Aldworth arguing in French.

In the meantime, 2 IFAW helicopters have landed on the ice to film this group of sealers, but leave their engines and blades running. Their people get chased back to their choppers by the younger colleagues of this knife-wielding maniac. I decide to step back and record this incident. It seems like the smartest and safest move. After he seems to have done shouting ten minutes later, we return to our own flying machines where our pilots have been observing the entire spectacle.

We want to take off sharpish , but this guy decides to stand too close to the helicopter and we are concerned that he might get injured or attempt to sabotage the craft. This can also be really dangerous. Just as our other helicopter takes off, two coastguard helicopters arrive. We are ordered to remain on the ground and turn off the blades. They briefly talk to the sealer and sent him off to merrily continue his bloody work, while we are asked to show our permits. It’s already getting late and our pilot wants to get back before sunset. He’s also concerned about his fuel levels.

Of course, this whole scene has been more or less staged by the sealers. They see our helicopters arriving and ensure that we break the distance rule, thus calling in the coastguard and police to teach us a lesson. The question remains whether they will pull our licences. It is too ridiculous for words!

In the end, we are allowed to leave and take off for home. This time I get to sit up front in the helicopter and I am again treated to the sight of hundreds of living seals on the ice and in the water. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I shall again head out to the ice. Undoubtedly I shall see many more terrible things and have more horrifying takes to tell.