Brutal Namibian seal hunt caught on film – Journalists attacked
28/07/2009 23:08:00
The Cape Cross Seal Reserve attracts many thousands of paying visitors each year. Opening hours are strict as between 7am and 9am for half the year. Around 200 seal pups are killed each day for the fur industry – the same colony visited by the tourists. ©
Dutch charity Bont voor Dieren is also part of the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) global Member Society Network. The WSPA has worked with Ecostorm to capture footage of various animal welfare issues over the last few years.
Click here to see the video on the WSPA website. It may distress some people.
90,000 seals cubs to be clubbedJuly 2009: Secret footage smuggled out of Namibia has revealed the brutal reality of the Namibian seal hunt - and the subsequent attack on British journalist Jim Wickens and South African cameraman Bart Smithers.
The dramatic film shows seals being killed by hunters during a hunt at the Cape Cross Reserve in Namibia and hunters armed with clubs running towards film maker Bart Smithers and Jim Wickens, from the UK's Ecostorm agency. The journalists, who were working on assignment with Dutch lobby group Bont voor Dieren were violently attacked by seal hunters before being detained by police.
The pair were subsequently held by the Namibian authorities before being freed after agreeing to pay a fine for "entering a protected marine area without a permit."
The incident has been reported around the world and shone a spotlight on the little known Namibian seal hunt.
Andrew Wasley, from Ecostorm, today said: "These are the pictures the Namibian authorities do not want the world to see. This week's violence and legal action against our journalists illustrate the lengths the seal hunt lobby and the authorities will go to to prevent images such as this from being broadcast."
Claudia Linssen, from Bont voor Dieren, said: "After watching these horrendous images one can only conclude one thing - this cruel hunt must stop. It is simply not possible for the Namibian authorities to continue promoting seal watching as a tourist activity whilst behind the scenes there is this grim killing taking place"
Boycott Namibia until this stops
She continued: "We urge the Namibian Government to cease the culling of seals and instead concentrate on sustainable tourism. As long as this cruelty continues we ask people to think twice about Namibia as a tourist destination."
Claire Bass, Head of Marine Mammals at World Society of the Protection of Animals (WSPA), said: "Every day hundreds of seal pups are suffering this barbaric treatment in this so-called 'seal reserve'. Commercial sealing is utterly cruel and unnecessary - the Namibian government must put a stop to it, to protect both seals and the seal-watching industries which depend upon them."
90,000 seal cubs clubbed
Namibia's seals number about 800,000 and more than 90,000 seals will be clubbed to death during this year's sealing season, which started in early July.
The hunt takes place secretly to avoid the glare of publicity - and to avoid upsetting tourists. Namibia is a popular tourist destination, particular for Dutch and German nationals.
Comment on the location and tell us what you saw there
Very sad to see the baby seals hunted by those cruel people
The big question here is "What can we do to stop" those killers.
To many cruelty in the planet
Posted by: T.Bandy | 26 Jan 2010 15:41:38
There is overwhelming evidence that the Namibian Seal pup slaughter is NOT a population control cull, nor are there any efforts toward conservation of the endangered species.
In 2006, Namibian government reported the seal population was “officially healthy, thriving, and over-populated,” and issued a whopping 85,000 kill quota to bludgeon, repeatedly beat, stab, and maim nursing seal pups in the birthing grounds from July to November. Shortly into the kill season, the public reports mass starvation, low weight, abnormal growth, and mass die off from starvation. (So the government lied in their original report.) The population was lower than 13 years earlier! And the quota increased to 85,000! This lengthened the season to July instead of August, which means even younger pups. In this season, the sealers have to stop clubbing and bury 900 seals per day, dead from starvation, in beach graves that cover them up. But did the government count the dead in the so-called population control cull? NO! They went back and raped the starving pups! Bashing their heads! Then they clubbed the older seals, which is against their own government regulations. Death for the older seals is more difficult, and is done by many, many, many, many beatings. Now, you’ve already seen the horrific baby clubbing, where the men stampede the seals, block the seals from the safety of the sea, herd the pregnant mothers and nursing babies (stressing the whole colony), then swing a club at one seal pup then another, and swing again wildly into the entire group, and slowly through repeated stressing, the pups vomit, the herd over-heats, the mothers try to protect, and the sealers continue to repeatedly club. Still breathing, the men start skinning them alive. Now folks, with this reality in mind, picture the 2006 starving colony, and these Namibians savages continuing to assault. The government decides not to count the already dead ones in the “quota for wildlife management and conservation” but they go back and rape and rape repeatedly.
In 2007, quota to 80,000 just 5,000 less than the previous mass starvation year, and 22 days into the season, NOT A SINGLE SEAL WAS LEFT ALIVE- TOTAL GENOCIDE!
But the conservationists and Honorable cabinet members call this: conservation,…wildlife management!
Namibia cabinet members receive money from the Fishing Industry: Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Iyambo received wedding gifts from Fishing Industries and one member serves as Director to a Fishing Industry, and the list goes on. What does this mean? … that these parliament members receive personal money to allow the seal kill. It’s called Conflict of Interest, and can be grounds for criminal conduct.
1. Seal clubbers can club people with cameras and are not charged with assault!!??!!
2. Government wrongly dubs taking a photo of wild life as “espionage.”
3. Fish stocks are overexploited, due to government members’ personal financial gain in the Fishing Industry, whilst government blames the seals and issues quotas for non-fishing eating pups.
4. Previous Minister of Nature Conservation is now a Seal Concession holder of “Sea lion products.” So-called Nature Conservationist now clubbing the seals for cash.
4. Fishermen carry guns and booze it up on the waters!
5. The Cape Fur Seal tourist permit, provided by Namibia, says it is “unlawful to kill, disturb, or injure any animal.” Hypocritical that the government can kill, disturb, and injure the animals (seals).
Namibia is flat criminal, cruel beyond belief, and heinous.
Why would anyone risk taking their family into this country? Why would anyone spend a penny on em! Why would any parent risk exposing their children and family to jailing, espionage charges, and physical attacks with a lying, self-contradictory, criminal government? There is no such thing as a “justice system” in Namibia. All it takes is cash, and they kill anything to total annihilation.
Posted by: Avana Slyvok | 20 Sep 2009 04:21:30
Culling is a very necessary management tool, I concede that it would be ignorant if not irresponsible not to manage wildlife resources in this way. The question is Werner , where do you draw the line between the humane and efficient culling of animals and outright barbaric cruelty, ie the savage and bloodlust clubbing to death of these seals. I agree with you , far be it for first world countries to preach to third world countries regarding conservation but I think you should wipe the salt spray from your eyes and realise that a well placed .22 bullet is more efficient and humane than the methods currently employed. Namibia relies heavily on tourism, that's a fact and it is up to Namibians to project an image that is conducive to a country that deserves the worlds attention as a tourism destination. With the Namibian Seal Clubbing and the stupidity of the clubbers attacking the journalists how can the world see Namibia as anything other than an intolerant do as we please and stuff what everyone else thinks country ? If that's the case I challenge you to present your case as to why Namibia deserves the tourist dollar. The Namibian Government is trying to safeguard a major industry ? Who will buy Namibian sea produce if the world decides to boycot products from a country that condones animal cruelty ? Let me emphasise , control your wildlife as you see fit, but there is a difference between humane culling and savage slaughter and the fact that every part of the carcass is used is commendable but does not excuse the methods being used to cull the seals.
Posted by: John Bouter | 11 Aug 2009 15:12:06
I cried to see those pups being clubbed to death, what sort of scum can do that to helpless animal life, its a pity we can not club the clubbers to death. I have read all the comments and I agree with some of them. I will not be taking a holiday in country that allows human ? beings. I am aware of comments like the Pheasant Industry, my daughter takes part so does my future Son - in - Law. They make lots of excuses, but they will not make me change my mind. They both run pet shops and love what they do and love their animals. I must own uo to the fact that I breed Rabbits and Chickens for the table. But not any more, after deep thinking I felt ashamed of myself so stopped doing it. We now have laws that cover some things like Bear Baiting, Fox hunting, Cock fighting, Dog fighting although the last two still goes on underground of course. It is the mental thinking that need changing. Maybe the EU could stop Aid to these countries. lord corcoran
Posted by: Corcoran | 06 Aug 2009 12:46:01
Please understand, I'm not entirely condoning the clubbing of baby seals here, but I don't get it. Where do we stop and/or start exactly?
Lets stop visiting Namibia because of this? Thats ridiculous! There are magnificent reserves their that protect some incredible wildlife. So are you against them as well?
Lets stop visiting the UK! They cull their red and fallow deer in their parks all over the country. Is that bad?
Lets stop visiting South Africa! They cull buffalo in their big national park. Is that bad?
What about the rest of the world? I don't think we should condemn people eking out a living in these countries because of something we don't agree on. Fight the fight, not the countries people.
Oh, and Botswana periodically still dumps uncontrolled poisons all over the Okavango swamps to control the INDIGENOUS Tsetse fly in order to allow EXOTIC cows. We need to stop going there as well.
There is so much crap going on all over the world. I've been in the middle of it for 11 years doing wildlife education, community work, anti-poaching etc. You can't stop what people consider their livelihood in Africa. You can only control how much is done.
Posted by: Mark Jones | 02 Aug 2009 08:41:16
Cape Fur Seal pups do not eat fish. Most pups will not reach maturity, due to drowning, starks, and many other marine predators. Marine studies from reputable universities clearly state that culling one marine species with the justification of larger fish populations is bogus. It states there are far too many predators of the same fish to conclude that one species causes fish depletion, and that the ecosystem is too diverse to draw to that. The adult seals, who survive on fish, are NOT the 90,000 culled, so there is NO affect on the fish stocks at all. One would have to be an idiot not to see that. The Department of Fisheries uses the false rationale (fish protection) to deceive the public, to provide a phony reason to slaughter babys' for fur fashion, and to avoid taking responsibility for their mis-management of human over-fishing.
The adult females are not killed at all. It's obvious why - to supply next years pup slaughter.
Namibia has knowingly lied the public. Namibia obviously knows the Cape Fur Seal Pup slaughter is horrifically cruel! That's why it's a "restricted" area and the clubbing is done at wee hours of the morning BEFORE THE TOURISTS arrive!
Shocking that Namibia plays both sides!!!! Posters at Cape Cross saying: "Help us PROTECT the beautiful seal colony." But they receive money to have the pups clubbed in early morning, then receive more money a few hours later to let the tourists into the "Marine Wildlife Reserve" and see the beautiful colony (what's left of it.) It is undeniably criminal! It is deceit and cruelity for cash. At the expense of their international reputation, the decline of tourism, and the expense of all marine like in the area.
Cape Cross is NOT a marine reserve! The seals are banned from their natural protected islands and forced to the mainland (such as Cape Cross) by humans. The reason is to make clubbing the babies easy. Cape Cross is NOT a Marine Reserve intended to protect their well being - it is in fact a CONCENTRATION CAMP! It would be far more expensive to transport dead seals from an island, and more difficult to club on the terrain.
The footage on this atrocity is evidence enough! Clubbers RANDOMLY swinging their weapon into a group, beating them over and over again, in the presence of the rest of the colony, stressing them horrifically. And then there's the stabbing and skinning alive part. Now this goes on, hundreds of times a day, EVERY DAY for months, until NINETY THOUSAND are blugeoned and stabbed to death. Then they bring the tourists in right afterwards, and tell em how beautiful the seal colony is, and tell em to "help protect" the seals.
Un-believable!
Namibia is now "world renowned" and famous for extreme cruelity, famous for lies, famous for extreme deceit.
Don't carry a camera, you could be jailed for 10 -20 years or clubbed.
Kids? Family? Want to go to Namibia?
No we value our life. And the life of intelligent, social, friendly Cape Fur seals.
Posted by: Avana Slyvok | 02 Aug 2009 07:13:36
Naievity is the route of all evil. You are right this is not a hunt, the baby seals do not even run away. They stand there confused (not stupid) whilst they are beaten to death at 1000 a time. You claim it a cull to protect fisheries, as some master human race conservation plan - absolute nonsense. Firstly nature culls the seal population all the time. Several mass die-offs (the largest in world history since 1994) from starvation from overfishing not seal numbers. Pups are culled by nature in heat, cold, extreme weather, by predators including jackals, sharks and even seabirds. Even the sea, drown 60% of their young. To claim a cull of 1 million baby seals over the next 10 years, who do not eat solids or catch fish and drink mothers milk, will benefit fisheries is as stupid as you can get. The only scientific study on a seal cull/fisheries interaction showed a cull to be negative to that fisheries. In fact, Namibian govt excludes ALL fish eating seals of all age groups from the cull. How is that for evidence of stupidity. Seals were exterminated from islands by sealers, which islands controlled the seal population most effectively. 98% of this habitat is extinct, permanently. Seals fled to the mainland. The only growth of the seal population, from near extinction in 1990, has been on the culling seal colonies, until the collapse of fisheries in Namibia from overfishing, and the mass starvation die-offs thereafter. In 2006, all the pups starved to death and half the adults. The stupid claim, is we kill livestock why not "cute" seals. A farmer raises his animals, feeds them, houses them and then only kills them if there is a market or need. If sealers in Namibia, raised the seals for slaughter, and feed and carried the cost of "farming seals", they would not kill seals, as no market would offer sealers thousands of dollars for the skins, when currently offering $7 a skin. The difference this is wildlife, who belong to all of us and nobody at the same time, when you slaughter over 50% of the species, you change the behaviour and ecology of the species, and this effects the bio-diversity of the environment to catastrophic proportions. For what so that two white concession holders can hire cheap black labour to beat cruelly 85 000 baby seal pups to death, to earn 500 000 dollars for an industry in the desert so someone in China can wear a fur jacket. Pathetic and misinformed to all who naively support this Namibian seal cull.
Posted by: Francois Hugo Seal Alert-Sa | 01 Aug 2009 10:07:39
Why do we always think of animals as the same as us?? If my daughter was clubbed to death in front of me, I would remember and mourn for life!! These animals don't, they get on with life, why? Because thats what they do, everyday. This has to be done for many different reasons, including keeping the seals numbers in check. We run around and kill off predators in the area, desert lions, brown hyena's, and then wonder what's wrong. We're wrong. Start seeing animals as a commodity. We CAN'T keep them all alive, and we are MEANT to utilise them, that's part of what conservation is. We can, however, look at a better method of doing it, thats all.
The same people that refer to things like this as horrible, disgusting, etc, are themselves the ones that wear leather boots and belts. Have leather wallets and eat animal products. Have you ever seen animals dying in an abbatoir? Not nice. We don't ever think about that. Then again, that's just a stupid cow, not a cute seal pup, not a pretty lamb running around a field with its mom. No, we protect ALL species and utilise ALL species, simple. The sooner we do that, the sooner this world will heal itself.
And please stop referring to this as hunting. Its not, its culling. Hunting is a totally different part of conservation. No wonder people have the wrong idea about hunting.
Posted by: Mark Jones | 01 Aug 2009 08:46:18
Interview with Francois Hugo, founder, Seal Alert-SA: www.13point7billion.org/2009/07/137-billion-years-exclusive-interview.html
Posted by: Reynard Loki | 31 Jul 2009 17:43:37
No discussion about the Namibian seal crisis is complete without talking about the great work of Francois Hugo, the founder of Seal Alert-SA, who has been tirelessly working to save the seals of Namibia. See an exclusive 13.7 Billion Years interview at www.13point7billion.org/2009/07/137-billion-years-exclusive-interview.html.
Posted by: Reynard Loki | 31 Jul 2009 17:42:42
I too am passionate about wildlife, conservation and the natural world and studying Wildlife biology. I understand what you are saying, Werner, but surely when animal cruelty comes in to it...there really is not need for it. Most countries have something that they do that involves animal cruelty whether it's tradition, to help increase revenue and tourism...Spain and bullfighting, UK foxhunting, Bear bating, dog fighting...the list is unfortunately endless!!? I appreciate that it involves peoples livelihoods too (the Nambian case), like fox hunting in the UK, but there must be a more humane way of reducing the numbers for the animals sake? I think that it is great that the seal carcass is not wasted, unlike many of the pheasants which are shot and then just dumped in piles... but what had that seal pup suffered before.....the stress that others are put through seeing it happen, must be immense! I realise that the answer should not involve Westerners telling third world countries how to live or what to do, they really have no right...I just mean that surely there must be a way that can suit everyone, particularly the animal involved.
Posted by: Katherine | 31 Jul 2009 15:02:24
I am from Namibian descent and am a qualified Conservation Officer. People need to realise that the fishing industry in Namibia is one of it's main revenue earners and if the seal population is not kept in check the fishing industry will collapse as it did before. Namibia is trying to exclude European fishing off the coast especially Spanish and Portuguese, to increase the revenue. Another point is that the seals are not exclusively clubbed for the fur trade, and that every bit of the carcass is used. It is funny how so called first world countries can dictate to a third world country as how to manage their wildlife after they themselves have almost eradicated their own, and in pretty much the same way. Just take the breeding of pheasant in the UK (thousands of birds) just to be shot for pleasure. At least the Namibian Government is trying to safeguard a major industry, especially in the current economic climate.
Posted by: Werner Oeder | 31 Jul 2009 14:16:37
I am an humain being, because of my birth..... but I am horrified to think that other humain beings are able to be these horrible monsters.......
At this time, I am ashamed to be an humain being.... so many animals are better than us.....
Posted by: Sylvie FLAK | 29 Jul 2009 20:45:37