AR-News: (S. Africa) Hout Bay man's lone campaign to save seals

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

IOL


 
 
Seal whisperer: Francois Hugo gives Babyface, a large bull seal, a rub on the 
chest. Photo: Gary van Wyk, Saturday Argus

Hout Bay man's lone campaign to save seals

April 17 2004 at 10:14AM
 


By Helen Bamford


A trip to Seal Island off Hout Bay has become one of the top attractions in 
the Western Cape but the boat-loads of tourists who make the journey are seldom 
given the true story behind these animals.

Like how many die from being entangled in fishing nets, or how many wash up 
in the harbour after starving to death, or how many are shot by fishermen who 
see them as vermin.

Hout Bay "seal man" Francois Hugo is putting together an awareness campaign 
comprising billboards of photographs, information boards and a booklet to 
educate people about these seals which have become a huge money-spinner for a 
number of Seal Island tour-boat operators.

Some of the pictures show the horrors of what the seals endure, like one 
yearling which beached on a tyre in the harbour, close to death from starvation.


'At least four seals die every day'
It was very weak but this didn't stop some men setting their dogs on the 
young seal.

In front of a jeering, applauding audience, the dog grabbed the seal around 
its snout and inflicted some horrible injuries before Hugo was called. The seal 
died on the way to the vet.

He says he wants people to become aware of these types of mindless attacks so 
they can be stopped.

full story:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=14&art_id=vn20040417101415171C635439&s
et_id=1 
Go to the Animalconcerns.org main page and click on "More News Headlines" for 
the news items that Animalconcerns volunteers have entered on the site.







 
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