FurCanada’s open house will kickstart campaigns for a seal, sea lion and sea otter commercial fishery in British Columbia.
By SeaWestNews
The fur is set to fly in Nanaimo this weekend, with an open house to kickstart campaigns for a seal, sea lion and sea otter commercial fishery in British Columbia.
FurCanada, a Vancouver Island company, hopes the event on Dec. 14, will raise awareness about the overpopulation of seal and sea lions which are decimating B.C.’s endangered and threatened chinook salmon stocks.
Thomas Sewid, who is President of Pacific Balance Marine Management, which is the organization leading the development of the seal, sea lion and sea otter industry estimates that of the 27 million chinook smolts produced a year in the Salish Sea (wild and hatchery) the pinnipeds are consuming about 24 million of them.
The hunting of seals and sea lions has been banned on Canada’s West Coast for more than 40 years. Fisheries and Oceans Canada estimates there are 105,000 harbour seals in B.C. coastal waters, roughly 10 times the number recorded in the early 1970s.