"The arrogance of the Canadian Government is beyond comprehension. The Atlantic Seal Hunt Management Plan is based on bad science, incorrect assumptions and flawed modelling and does not take many vital issues into consideration. Hundreds of thousand of seals will be killed over the next few weeks with no clear understanding of the ecological impacts," said Mhairi Dunlop, Greenpeace International.

The hunt opened at 6am (Atlantic Time) this morning in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. A further hunt in Labrador, known as the Front, will begin on April 12. The total allowable catch (TAC) for this year is 319,500 harp seals, 95% of which will be under one year old. This brings the total to 975,000 seals that will have been killed and officially registered over the three-year management plan produced by the Government's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).

The herd, currently numbering between 4 and 6 million according to DFO figures, has recovered from its near collapse in the 1980's when over-hunting took the herd population to 1.3 million. This year's hunt will be the largest hunt of any marine mammal in the world. New census data on the current size of the herd has not been released by the DFO.

Greenpeace produced a report, "The Canadian Seal Hunt: No management and no plan", released on March 9, detailing inaccuracies in the Ministry's science used to justify the commercial hunt. The DFO have yet to respond to the evidence presented choosing instead to attack the messenger rather than the message.

Findings in the report include:

• Failure to accurately reflect the actual number of seals killed in the hunt rendering the DFO quota figures scientifically indefensible. The TAC for 2003-2005 does not take into account seals that are "struck and lost":illegally hunted, killed and discarded due to pelt damage and those killed for their organs and therefore not included in the pelt count.
  
• Population projections are based on assumptions that environmental and biological factors remain unchanged over the short and long term, a premise that is highly questionable in light of the escalating impact of climate change on the oceans and ice conditions.
  
• Quotas are based on a seal census conducted at five-year intervals. Because the hunt focuses on seal pups that do not reach breeding age for five years, impacts on the herd can take as many as 10 years to show up and 15 years to establish any meaningful trends. This renders DFO conservation milestones and monitoring virtually meaningless.
  

Greenpeace opposes the commercial seal hunt but does not oppose the Indigenous hunts of Canada and Greenland

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