When I watch wildlife documentaries I love to see playful seals and I would love to take part in a seal watching expedition in Scotland or even on the South East Coast of England (Margate in Kent is becoming a hot spot for seal spotting).

However these popular marine mammals which help attract wildlife tourists to various locations across the world are victims of human cruelty. Seals are brutally and savagely murdered across the world for their skin, oil and most bizarrely by fishermen because seals eat fish to survive!

The Canadian commercial seal hunt

When I think of Canada, I think of a country rich in wildlife however it appears that the Canadian Government may care more about what the fishing industry thinks and increasing GDP from commercial activity than wanting to keep its country rich in wildlife. Each year a cruel and unethical practice takes place in Canada in which seals (including pups aged about 2 weeks to 3 months) are killed with a blow to the head using a wooden club or hakapik.

This hunt is a highly competitive activity and it is disturbing to know that some of the seals are actually skinned before being rendered fully unconscious. Most of the sealers are fishermen who in addition to wanting the seals to sell abroad also have a vested interest as they own sea food companies and thus want to reduce seal population to maintain cod stock levels which in turn will increase their profits.

The 2008 Seal Hunt

The allowed quota for 2008 was 275,000 seals however it was reported that participation in seal hunting was lower than usual and federal officials say that about 80% of the quota was taken (still far too many!!). The reason for low participation included bad weather, high fuel price and the fall in financial value of pelts (half of what they were a year ago).

Seal products

Whilst seal products are not sold in the U.S.A (thanks Marine Mammal Protection Act) they are still legally sold in a variety of countries including the UK!

Seal pelts

Back in 1982, the European Union banned the import of ‘whitecoat’ seal pup pelts (skin) however hunters instead waited until the pups shed their white fur before they killed them.

Seal pelts are still used for a variety of products ranging from designer coats to traditional Scottish sporrans (see photograph below).

However I was delighted to hear that the UK ethical Bank ‘Cop-Operative’ refused to do business with one Scottish kilt company which still uses seal pelts in its sporran range (news source from Guardian newspaper)

Seal meat

After the seals have been skinned most of the meat is wasted and left on the ice, however some is sold and ground up into animal feed and some of the flippers are even sold for human consumption in Newfoundland.

Seal oil

North Atlantic Harp Seal oil is sold in capsules labeled “Terra Nova Omega-3 capsules” by a company called ‘Atlantic Marine Products’. However there is no need at all to source Omega 3 from seals or even fish as ethical alternatives exists including vegan versions containing predominantly seed oil.

Seal products and the EU Legislation

Thanks to the successful lobbying of various conservation and animal welfare organisations the European Commission recently announced that it will seek to ban the import of “inhumane” seal products.  However it is not known how long it will be until it is enforced.

Seals and the Fishing industry

It is hard to escape the fact that fish stocks are becoming drastically low, however rather than blaming the unsustainable fish quota’s, many unjustifiable persecute seals simply for eating fish for survival.

Conservation organisations including the Seal Preservation Action Group (SPAG) in the
UK state that:

“There is no scientific evidence to justify claims that seals are threats to fish stocks when human over-fishing clearly is”

In fact research suggests that seals are opportunistic feeders and their diet mainly consists of fish species which commercial fishermen target. According to SPAG:

“It has been estimated that seals in the North Sea account for only 2% of fish stocks annually, compared to 25% to 30% by the fishing industry”

The way in which some fishermen, fish farmers and even the owners of sports fishing rivers deal with seals eating their fish stock is to shoot them. In such instances profit is being put before ethics, animal welfare and nature conservation. However consumers must also play a role in terms of supply and demand, commercial fishermen and fish farmers are protecting fish stock from marine mammals to supply the demand from consumers.

What you can do to help

1) Use your consumer power to protect seals by:

a) Not purchasing any seal by-products

b) Boycott business organisations that sell seal byproducts including fashion designers

c) Help SPAG encourage UK food retailers to stock seal friendly salmon

d) Reduce or even completely stop eating fish

e) Not participating in or funding the sport fishing industry

2) Lobby for change:

a) Help SPAG encourage the UK government to create a Seal Protection Act whereby the killing of seals will be strictly forbidden.  If you would like to help SPAG’s campaign, please write to the relevant UK and Scottish Ministers calling for the protection of seals.

Their addresses are:

Lord Rooker, Minister for Animal Welfare, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, Nobel House, London SW1P 3JR

Richard Lochhead MSP Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs, Scottish Parliament,Edinburgh EH99 1SP

For further information about this campaign please go to the Seal Preservation Action Group (SPAG) website

b) Write to the Canadian Ambassador in your country and pledge to boycott all Canadian seafood products until sealing is ended.

In the UK the address is Canadian High Commission, Macdonald House,1 Grosvenor Square, London,W1X 0AB

c) Write to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown demanding that the UK introduces a unilateral ban on the import of all seal products as have EU partners Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands:

Rt Hon.Gordon Brown MP, Prime Minister, Downing Street, London, SWIA 2AA

I have written to all of the above and I hope that GGG readers will get involved to help protect seals too!

I’m back! Regular GGG readers may have noticed that it has been some time since I wrote a post for this fantastic blog and I would like to apologise for that. However I hope that you will forgive me as I have been in the middle of selling my house and relocating. Whilst I have lots of interesting news that I could post on GGG, I thought that I would start off by providing you all with an update about the Marine Bill Campaign.

Marine and Coastal Access Bill

After extensive campaigning from a wide range of environmental and conservation organisations the UK Government has included the Marine Bill (now called the Marine and Coastal Access Bill) in its draft legislative programme. This is absolutely fantastic news for the environment and marine life, however before we all get excited I would like to highlight that whilst there is a strong indication that it will be mentioned in the Queens speech (and thus be brought forward to Parliament) there is no guarantee.

Good – but could be better

I have read a couple of different summary documents for the Marine and Coastal Access Bill (not yet had time to read the whole draft Bill in great detail) and from what I can gather and what marine experts have informed me (including Lisa Chilton the Marine Development Manager at the Wildlife Trust) the Bill is good but could be a lot better. For example there is concern over the following points:

§ There seems to be too much emphasis on economic development (in terms of tourism, commerce etc) as opposed to protecting the environment and marine life.

§ Under the new rules some damaging activities such as dredging may be exempt from licensing. Also oil and gas licensing will continue under The Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR) rather than the Marine Management Organisation (MMO)

§ It appears that there is not a duty on the Secretary of State to designate Marine Conservation Zones (MCZ) which is appalling. The Marine Bill should enforce the duty to designate MCZ’s not just a power to designate.

Going Forward

A joint Committee of the House of Commons and the House of Lords has been established to scrutinize the draft Bill. As a member of the public you can provide your views and comments on the draft Bill by writing to Defra before 26^th June 2008.

I will be writing my response and I hope that GGG readers will too. In order to gain the full picture I highly recommend that you read the full, draft Marine Bill and accompanying notes which is available to download by clicking here.

After reading the draft Bill please send your comments to:

Marine Bill TeamDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsArea 2C Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR

I will keep you posted about the Marine and Coastal Access Bill including updates about specific important marine sites such as Lyme Bay Reefs.

All over the world dedicated volunteers help with important conservation projects ranging from planting trees, scrub bashing to scuba diving!

Yes, scuba diving. In addition to land based projects, conservation and environmental charities are now benefiting from volunteers who are helping to collect important biological data from the ocean.

The Ocean

Our planet is 70% ocean, yet historically we have explored very little of this vast and important natural habitat.  What is know though is that in some areas of the sea, marine life is on the decline, this includes areas around the UK.  I have highlighted loss of marine life in some of my previous posts including: Can we have the Bill please and Cycling to save our seas – Update.

Cycling to save our seas

You may recall that back in August,  I raised money for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust through a sponsored bike ride (reported about in the post titled Cycling to save our seas – Update).

As a thank you for raising this money,  the Marine Officer at the Hampshire and IOW Wildlife Trust ‘Vicky Swales’ invited me and my fiancé to join her and a team of volunteer divers on a Seasearch expedition.

Seasearch

Seasearch is a national project for volunteer scuba divers who have an interest in what they’re seeing under water,  want to learn more and want to help protect the marine environment.  The main aim is to map out the various types of sea bed found in the near-shore zone around the whole of the British Isles. In addition they record what lives in each area, establishing the richest sites for marine life,  the sites where there are problems and the sites which need protection including along the Hampshire and IOW coast.

The Hampshire and IOW coast

The marine habitats off the Hampshire and Isle of Wight coasts are diverse,  with wrecks,  rocky reefs and sand and gravel dunes.  They play host to a wealth of marine life from sea squirts and sponges to corals and cuttlefish.

Due to commercial dredging and over fishing,  areas along the coast have been affected. In order to determine the extent of the damage,  the Hampshire and IOW Wildlife Trust undertake underwater biological surveys as part of the seasearch project.

Seasearch expedition: 21/10/07

When Vicky invited me to join the Seasearch team as an observer for the day,  I was really pleased as it was a chance to see marine conservation in action.  The expedition was to be the last of the year and we were very fortunate that the weather was on our side, the sun was shining and the waves were calm.

In total there was five volunteer divers,  three observers (including me and my fiancé), Vicky and the Skipper Steve Dimmer.   After health and safety instructions and a lot of paperwork (all of which is vital) we set sail onto the Solent.

When we got to the first dive spot,  all of the divers were prepped by Vicky and then they got on with getting all of their scuba gear on.  If you have ever seen divers get ready, especially when they are going into cold water then you will realise it’s not a simple process.  They have to do a lot of checking to make sure that all their equipment is in full working condition.

The divers went down in a group of two and a group of three,  each team had a camera and they all had a waterproof note board in which to write their observations. Unfortunately visibility was not fantastic on the first dive however one group did encounter an eel. 

The second dive was in shallower water and visibility was much stronger.  The divers were very pleased as the area was quite diverse with marine life ranging from algae to even a Bloody Henry Starfish (Henricia oculata).   All of the data collected on this Seasearch expedition and previous ones will be loaded into a database so that the Wildlife Trust can identify important sites and species around our shores.

Getting Involved

If you are not all ready, then I highly recommend that GGG readers become involved in conservation work as it is extremely rewarding and provides essential support to conservation and environmental charities.  For example all of the Seasearch volunteers who I spoke to thoroughly enjoyed what they did and were delighted to combine their scuba dive hobby with important conservation work.

Seasearch are always looking for qualified divers to help with underwater surveying, thus if you are interested and would like further information about Seasearch please click here.

If you are not a qualified diver and would like to help with marine surveying, then you could assist with Shoresearch. For further details about Shoresearch please click here.

I will post details about further conservation volunteering experiences and opportunities in future posts.  However in the mean time if you use the social networking site Facebook and would like to learn about conservation volunteering or share your experiences then please join the ‘I’m a conservation volunteer’ group.

Those of you who read Vicky’s post titled ‘cycling to save our seas’ on August 20^th may have wondered how my sponsored bike ride went and how the campaign is going. Well, the three day bike ride and tour of Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight was a great success – the sun was shining and we saw some beautiful British coastline and countryside.

The aim of the sponsored bike ride was to help raise some funds and create public awareness for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust’s ‘Operation Seahorse’ campaign. We raised over £200 in the end, which is not bad as it was a rather last minute idea. However the Hampshire and IOW Wildlife Trust still require a significant amount of funding so that they can carry out important surveys of the marine environment. If you would like to help then please purchase a limited edition Operation Seahorse T-shirt or make a donation.

The Operation Seahorse campaign is part of a network of campaigns being conducted by the Wildlife Trust movement and other members of the Wildlife & Countryside Link. The aim of these campaigns is to raise awareness about the UK’s diverse marine life and to lobby the government to designate sites as Highly Protected Marine Reserves.

If you are a UK citizen and would like to help protect our seas then please sign the Wildlife Trusts online petition fish.

But hurry because signatures collected via the online petition and the 200 petition fish which have been on display at Wildlife Trusts’ events throughout the UK will be taken to Westminister on Wednesday 10^th October for an event with MPs. Then the following week, the petition will be delivered to Downing Street, in a final bid to keep the Marine Bill afloat. I will hopefully be attending the event on the 10^th October as a representative of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, thus I will keep you posted about the progress of this campaign.