AR-News: Canadian Sealers Assocation Loses Their Staff

[Political Animal]

The Telegram (St. John's)
Wednesday, March 31, 2004 
Sealers blasted for office closure

By Jean Edwards Stacey
The Telegram

Longtime sealer Jack Troake of Twillingate blames his
fellow sealers,
and not the government, for this week's shutdown of
the St. John's-based
office of the *Canadian* *Sealers* *Association*
(CSA).

"I blame the sealers. There's not one person that
holds a sealing
licence (who) can blame the government for the
predicament we're in.
It's the sealers' own fault," Troake said Tuesday from
his home in
Twillingate.

Troake, who has been a sealer for more than 50 years,
said there are
12,000 licensed sealers in Newfoundland and Labrador
but only about 600
are members of the CSA. It's a situation he calls
"disgraceful."

He said if all the licensed sealers in the province
were members of the
CSA and paying their $25 annual membership fee, as
well as the 25 cents
per pelt levy asked by the CSA, the association would
have no trouble
surviving.

"If 75 to 80 per cent of the 12,000 licensed sealers
were members of the
association and paying their dues we'd be laughing,
we'd have money to
do lots of things," says Troake.

The CSA was formed in 1982 in response to negative
publicity against the
sealing industry by some animal rights groups. Its
primary focus was to develop an educational and public
awareness
campaign to counteract animal right groups.

This week, the CSA laid off office staff including
executive director
Tina Fagan. All that's left in place is the board of
the
CSA, which is made up of local volunteer sealers.

The news about the CSA doesn't surprise Troake.

He said for years the federal and provincial
government pumped money
into the CSA and it's now time for the organization to
be
self-sustaining.

When the organization was formed it needed government
funding, he said,
but it should be able to make it on its own.

"This is not a shock to us," he said about the CSA
closing its doors.
"The sealers have been expecting this for the past
couple of years. The
biggest shock for us is where the price of seals has
gone in comparison
to what we had when we tried to form that association,
from $12 a skin
to $75 a skin now."

He noted the spring before last some sealing ships
were out at the ice
for two days and brought in catches worth $120,000.

The money is good, so there's no reason for sealers
not to be members of
the CSA and paying their annual membership fee.

Troake will head out to the ice fields to go sealing
April 12. The quota
for his fleet sector is 120,000 seals. The overall
quota for Eastern
Canada is 350,000 seals. That's out of what Troake
estimates is a total
seal population of about five million.

Troake is not worried about selling this year's catch
of seals. He said
that's not a problem as there are plenty of buyers.




	
		
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