A team consisting of Hertbert Henrich from Sea Shepherd, Francois Hugo from Seal Alert and Celeste Houseman from NSPCA met with the Namibian Prime Minister, Nahas Angula, and Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Dr. Abraham Iyambo, to present their views on the killing of seals in Namibia.  Hugo put forward a number of arguments based on research carried out on the seal populations in South Africa that showed that the killing of seals was not necessary to control the population.

 

The fish stocks around in Namibian waters are suffering from the same problem as many other once fertile fishing grounds, namely over-fishing to the point of almost collapse. The seals eat fish and the Namibian government are concerned that the number of seals on their coastline will have a detrimental effect on fish stocks and consequently on employment based on fishing and killing the seals in the area.  Currently the killing creates 140 jobs for about 4 months.

 

Currently the quotas are for 80000 seal pups and 6000 bulls.  “If you are concerned about the fish why is it you are killing the pups as they don’t eat fish” Hugo said.  The Prime Minister and his team were shown footage of seals being killed.  This disturbing footage showed gangs of men wading into a group of seals, surrounding them and then just clubbing at them until they were dead.  It also showed pups still twitching and vomiting milk.  Houseman pointed out that there is no independent monitoring of the killings to ensure that the seals were being killed in a humane way.  The Prime minister suggested that a further meeting between all sides should be held to find a better way to proceed.

 

Henrich said that “There are funds available to help the people in that area find alternative work and to develop the touristic potential of the seals but that no meeting of this nature could proceed unless the Namibian government were prepared to embrace stopping the killing of the seals altogether.”

 

After the meeting “Henrich said that “The seals are being used as a scapegoat to cover the mismanagement of fisheries resources”

 

The meeting is currently scheduled for August the 9th but a number of letters sent by Henrich to the Namibian government asking for confirmation of the will to stop killing the seals has not been received.