vol. 10, no.5, october 1981 - Memorial University of Newfoundland

32-DECKS AWASH
fishermen of New Bay and the
rest of Not re Dame Bay th is
year was how the sealing was
managed. Because the ice did
not come south as far as Notre
Dame Bay, F isheri es and
Oceans officials felt that the
seals would also remain in
northern waters, so they opened
a quota for Iongllner fishermen
who wanted to go up to St. Anthony
, and they closed the hunt
to landsmen farther south . This
spring, Milton Moores travelled
to "the Front" in a long liner to
witness the action, and was not
impr essed.
"Two longliners were sunk in
the ice," he says, "and dozens
more were badly damaged.
The n there was the ex pense of
having the Coast Guard ice ­
breaker up there supporting a
hunt that could have been
carried on more safely and
economically by landsmen on
the northeast coast. You had 200
or so fisher men up there killing
whitecoats that if left a few
week s would double their size
and commercial value. Another
thing was that the long tlner hun t
was very poorly regulated. Far
more seals were killed than
were la nded . Fishermen in
Conc he told me thay were
picking up 14 to 15carcasses per
day for several weeks - seals
that had been shot and abandoned."
Gordon Cross, Chief of the
Conservation and Protection
Br anch of Fisheries and Oceans,
had a few words to say abo ut
this situation when we contacted
him in St. Jo hn's. His department
apparently had a lot of
pro blems checking the prog ress
of the hun t and counting the
nu mber of seals taken. The hunt
was closed on 18 March. the n reopened
and closed twice more,
the final closure being 10 April ,
at which time few sea ls had
travelled as far south as Not re
Da me Bay .
"T his spring we had the most
unusual ice conditions in the
pa st 13 years," com me nts
Gor don Cross. "and no one
tho ught that the sea ls would
swim south as far as they did
without the ice . Reacting to
pressure from the fishermen's
Ivan Moor e s, aged 26, and his coat. tne as-teet Flanders Poppy, " I've gol 350
lobs te r pols,,. says Ivan , "and gal an average of two and a halt boxes per day
this spring. The giUnetting for cod and turbot is not wortn the effort ttn s
summer. We pu t out25 nels aboul eight miles out 01 the bay, and alter a week,
w e had 2500 poun ds o f fis h, The turbot may pick up in September, but untutnen
I 'll stic k wi th sq uid·drying, and may bar-seine lor mackerel. '
union, we allowed the long liners
to go to the front. Then by the
time we realized that the seals
were going to reach th e northeast
coast, the quota of 59,900
pelts had already been tak en by
longliners and landsmen in
northern waters, As it turned
out , the seals went as far south
as Conception Bay ."
The Sealing Advisory Committee
has been in operation for
at least four years now, consisting
of representatives from
government. industry, and
unions. as well as four fish ermen
from the north part of th e
island, "The Committee will be
meeting in October," Gord on
Cross tells us, "and this will be
followed by meetin gs in some
communities, The fisher men
now are askin g for a landsmen
quota in each bay , rather than
simply having the quota divided
into north and south ,"
" We ar e defin itely concerned
th at longliners not take all the
quota next yea r, and we want to
make sure th at seals are
available to landsmen in
Bonavista and Trinity Bays.
Another factor is the poor
fishery this yea r overall. It is
going to be a hard winter for
many of our fishermen, so by the
spring we will try to let as many
peopl e as possible at the seals'fa