Arctic Harp Seals Show Up on U.S. Beaches

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2006/may/16/051605474.html

OCEAN CITY, Md. (AP) - Canadian snowbirds aren't the only northern tourists you might meet at the beach this summer.

An increasing number of young harp seals are straying from their northern breeding grounds and showing up on U.S. beaches, biologists say. Federal researchers say 297 harp seals were reported on beaches from Virginia to Maine last year, almost double the 152 reported in 1995.

The booming arctic harp seal population in Canada, spurred by a hunting ban, and dwindling food sources such as cod are among the reasons being cited.

"This is interesting and weird," said John Hocevar, a marine biologist with Greenpeace. "There has definitely been a healthy rebound in their numbers."

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[Ezlivin]

1. Now we can start clubbing them in warmer weather

Won't that be convenient?

[Harper_is_Bush]

2. Note "hunting ban".

Now there's too many of them, so they're forced out of their environment.

[Oerdin]

12. We've killed their preditors

So now the population is booming and outgrowing the resources in their native environment. We've seen this in deer populations. Likely we'll see the boom and bust cycles in seal populations which we've seen in under hunted deer populations as the population booms, it consumes all the available resources, and then starvation causes a population collapse. This is a repeating cycle.

We need to either protect the predators so that stable populations of predator and prey can be reestablished or we need to have humans hunt them so to prevent the over population and collapse cycles.

[LeftyMom]

15. Those boom and bust cycles are particular to herbiverous herd animals

As harp seals are neither herbiverous nor herd animals the model does not apply to them.

The boom and bust deer model does not apply to harp seals as thier numbers are limited by predation, limited food and limited availibility of the sea ice on which they rear pups. Additionally the deer model is largely arteficial and caused by management techniques designed to keep a large population for hunting (such as killing bucks rather than does- deer are not monagamous so it takes very feew bucks to keep a whole forest of does knocked up, serious efforts to reduce deer populations via hunting would involve more tags for does than bucks but hunters prefer bucks because they're larger and thus provide more edible flesh and a better "trophy") and in most parts of North America the lack of predators as a result of hunting and habitat loss. These conditions do not apply to the harp seal.

Since the seals are well off of thier historic highs, thier numbers haven't been counted since 1997 (hunting has increased since then and with several bad ice years thier numbers are likely down, but there's no way of knowing until the Canadian gov't authorizes a count) and there is scientific concern that thier long term population is threatened by the effects of global warming on the sea ice they use to rear thier pups, this really isn't a justifiable argument for killing seals for population management purposes.

[bluefish]

3. migrating seals, warmer temps

No such thing as global warming...:sarcasm:

[GDAEx2]

5. Welcome to DU Bluefish!

eom

[GDAEx2]

4. There is no ban on hunting Harp seals!

Unless the Canadian government is now using a euphemism like "population management" instead of hunting.
See the history of the hunt here: http://pagophilus.org/hunt/history.htm

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[OCDDAVID]

6. I'd Run Away Too!

Click here to view the body count in Canada's seal slaughter

http://www.hsus.org/protect_seals.html

http://IHateRedState.com

[Oerdin]

13. That picture is such BS.

The white coated pups have been completely protected from hunting for years and years. Something like 20 years if I remember correctly yet some how the anti-hunting people still insist on using old pictures to try to help their cause. That's nothing but deliberately lying.

[LeftyMom]

14. The pic downthread isn't old

The photo you find objectionable is a photograph of a sealer bludgeoning a harp seal with a hakapik, which is the same thing done on the floes this year. The only outdated thing about it is that the seals have to be a few days older now before they are murdered. Really, who gives a shit if the seal killed is a week old and has a snowy white coat or two weeks old and a bit mottled? In either case it's just as dead and for just as stupid a reason- vanity.

Pro-seal organizations and individuals use old pics primarily because the sealers and the Canadian goverment have made it very difficult to get new ones, as the very small number of permitted observers are kept at distance and subjected to ramming and other harassing behaviors from sealers on much larger boats. To make obtaining new photos difficult and then criticize opponents of the seal slaughter for using older pictures is disingenuous at best.

[shain from kane]

7. Nobody goes to the beach anymore because it's so crowded. n/t

[GDAEx2]

8. Just got off of the phone with the scientist quoted in the story...

..he says that he did not tell the reporter that there is a ban on Harp seal hunting.
The author of the AP article is Tom Pelton, from the Baltimore Sun.
I'm sure he would appreciate some feedback:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/about/bal-reporterfeedback,0,4526743.htmlstory?recipient=[e-mail]

:evilgrin:

[Beaverhausen]

9. Good for you!

Where did the reporter get the idea that there was a hunting ban anyway?

[LeftyMom]

10. What hunting ban?

[flvegan]

11. The only ban is on infant whitecoats.

Funny how spin works, eh?