South African seal rescuer Francois Hugo can shut down Namibia's sealing industry for good. All he needs is $14 million to buy it out
::: A 13.7 BILLION YEARS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW :::
The Namibian Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources announced the new seal harvesting season, which officially began on July 1 and ends on November 15, with a quota of 91,000 seals -- 85,000 pups and 6,000 bulls.
But so far, no Namibian Cape fur seals have been killed.
The seal hunt has ostensibly been put on hold as negotiations are being held to potentially sell off the Namibian sealing industry to Hugo's seal rescue organization Seal Alert-SA. Hugo is now in a race to raise the $14 million to buy out the sealing business of Hatem Yavuz, the last remaining purchaser of seal skins from Namibia.
Yavuz approached Hugo in late June, days before the start of the seal cull, with a proposal to sell his business. This was after Seal Alert-SA and anti-fur NGOs mounted a campaign exposing Yavuz's involvement in the fur trade of this endangered seal species. The main target of the hunt are nursing baby seals, which are desired for their fur. Older male bulls are also killed to supply the Asian markets with seal penis, considered an aphrodisiac.
One seal pup skin from Namibia costs $7. A standard individual donation to an anti-sealing campaign is $25. It costs $100 to adopt a seal at one of the 79 seal rescue centers worldwide. It costs Hugo about $1,250 to raise a rescued seal pup for one year. The deal on Hugo’s table equates to buying the rights at $14 per each of the 1 million seals from being killed in Namibia for the next 10 years. Looking at the math alone, this is an extremely worthwhile deal.
In 1972, the first seal pup census was taken in Namibia. At the time, the nation was home to 13 seal colonies. Four of these colonies remain on 11 islands off the coast of Namibia and have recently received official protection. Overall, Cape fur seals are extinct in 98% of their original and preferred habitat -- offshore islands. However since 1990, the Namibian government has given the sealing industry quotas for annual seal hunts of two colonies which exist unnaturally on mainland Namibia. Three years ago, the government increased the seal pup quota by 30%, -- from 65,000 to 85,000. Hugo knew that this figure would result in every pup being killed in both mainland colonies. That is when he started a campaign against the government’s policy.
The government has granted the right for the sealing industry to kill one million seals until 2019. The annual quota is determined by scientific assessments of the annual seal population, which should under sustainable-use policies not exceed 30% of pups born. The current quota exceeds the surviving pups by July 1. The deal on the table will include selling the right to kill the one million seals.
In July of 2007, Hugo was invited to speak with the Namibian prime minister Nahas Angula, who connected him with officials in the mining, fishing and tourism industries in order to resolve the issue. But there were disputes over how data was being presented by the government scientists. In the end, the talks were stalled by the government. That led to Hugo getting Namibia’s two biggest tourism partners -- the Netherlands and Germany -- to ban seal products. Hugo’s efforts to get Namibia’s seals included in the recent EU ban were also successful. But Namibia is looking to Asia and Turkey as its main markets.
Several weeks ago, Hugo discovered the name of Namibia’s last buyer for seal skins. It was Hatem Yavuz, who is based in Australia. Thousands of activist emails flooded Yavuz, who then made an offer to sell his interests in Namibia. This sale would amount to buying out the entire Namibian seal industry.
Though the Namibian sealing season has officially begun and sealers are currently allowed to start killing seals, Hugo has stated that all the parties involved in the talks are aware that if one seal is killed, he will call off the deal.
13.7 Billion Years asked Francois Hugo about the current buyout deal that could stop the annual slaughter of Namibia's endangered Cape fur seals.
13.7: What is the current situation regarding the possible sale of the Namibian sealing industry to Seal Alert-SA?
Hugo: The two-week private business agreement to halt the seal cull passes on July 15. Thereafter it’s a question of putting the cash on the table. Buyer and seller are talking almost daily.
13.7: How close are you to raising the $14 million to buy out Yavuz?
Hugo: Seal Alert-SA is a private seal protection and rescue organization. We are therefore not a public fundraising NGO. I have no staff or mailing lists or databases full of supporters and membership details. Therefore I have had to appeal to the media and other anti-seal groups to ask their members to support. This takes time. Pledges have come in from $14 to $200,000, but to date not even 10% to secure the buyout has been achieved. It needs greater media and NGO awareness and support.
13.7: What are the biggest roadblocks to this deal?
Hugo: The biggest roadblocks are the myths being uttered by the anti-seal hunt groups as a way out of supporting the buyout with their accumulated funds -- running into billions of dollars -- derived from decades of anti-seal hunt campaigns.
13.7: According to the Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition, the rights to kill seals in Namibia are granted to only three companies: Cape Cross Seals, Sea Lion Products and Namibia Venison and Marine Exporters. Is that correct? And Yavuz is their only buyer of skins?
Hugo: That is correct, but it is basically two concession holders for the two seal colonies.
13.7: If Seal Alert-SA is able to purchase Yavuz’s stake in the Namibian sealing industry, will other sealing operations continue?
Hugo: No. The deal is to buy out the entire Namibian sealing industry and shut it down.
13.7: If this is a private business deal, how exactly is the government involved?
Hugo: The government must be involved from the beginning for a number of reasons. First of all, selling the rights to kill one million seals needs the minister’s consent. Should the minister not decide to give it or refuse, Yavuz would therefore have nothing to sell and could be liable for attempted fraud. Secondly, the government also needs to state its position equally whether it would now adopt a policy of non-consumptive use of the seals in line with the constitution of Namibia -- therefore declaring seal culls officially over.
13.7: What will happen if the government doesn’t agree to include the transfer of the killing rights in the deal?
Hugo: A number of things. Firstly, I could charge the sealing industry for allegedly attempted fraud and extortion. These charges could force the government to suspend the sealing rights pending the outcome of a trial. Secondly, the seal processing factories could be sold for a lower price, closing all means of processing seals. Thirdly, an offer could be made to pay the government the full sealing levies and re-train and re-employ seal clubbers as seal colony protectors and monitors. There are many options, but cash on the table must come first.
13.7: Your recent press release mentions the possibility of financial support for the sale from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), but they have remained silent. What do you think is the reason for this?
Hugo: Three decades ago, IFAW developed a campaign to end seal hunts where an estimated $1.5 billion has been raised. Its support base of 3 million supporters consists mainly of members wishing to end seal hunts. Unfortunately, IFAW has widened its activities to expand their support base and have therefore diverted more and more funds and energies into other animal causes. It clearly has become more profitable to speak out about seal hunts than to end them.
13.7: The Namibian government offered a very cheap buyout of their sealing industry to IFAW when the industry was still in its infancy, but it never happened. Why? It seems that because IFAW didn’t take this offer in 1990, the Namibian seal industry has been allowed to grow in the meantime, with ever increasing quotas. Does IFAW potentially have seal blood on its hands?
Hugo: Why IFAW refused that earlier deal needs to be addressed with them, as they refuse to answer my questions. IFAW does have seal blood on its hands. Three years later the industry invested $3.5 million in building new seal processing factories, hiring more staff, developing omega-3 seal oil, claiming health capsules and seeking pup quotas that have increased tenfold, from 9,000 to 85,000 pups. If we do not buy them out this time, $100 million profits from the skins of endangered seals will be invested in other animal cruelty industries.
13.7: What is the status of the other organizations that have been mentioned in this discussion, such as Humane Society International (HSI), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA)?
Hugo: All have campaigned to end Namibia’s seal hunt, all describe it as extremely cruel and a threat to the conservation of the species and all eventually supported my efforts to have the EU ban imports. All have appealed for donations in this regard from the members. The Humane Society alone has 11 million members. If each donated $1, this buyout could happen today.
13.7: Is there any prospect of getting one major donor to just put up the $14 million?
Hugo: If HSI asked its 11 million members to pledge $1 each or IFAW’s members pledged $5 each, then either these two or a combination could come up with the buyout money very quickly. So yes, but to date they remain inactive and silent on the issue. Even requests to ask the CEOs to offer their supporters the option -- to each make up their own mind as to how they want their donations spent -- has fallen on deaf ears. There is a possibility of a donor such as De Beers coming forward. De Beers Executive Director Stephen Lussier has publicly stated that the company is opposed to culling and wrote to the EU in support of the ban, but only time will tell.
13.7: According to the Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition, the Namibian seal hunt is the second largest commercial seal hunt in the world. Or is it the biggest -- according to your recent press release?
Hugo: It is now the largest. Although Canada awards a larger quota on a seal population -- six times larger -- it affects only 6% of the population as seals of all ages can be killed, except nursing seal pups which are banned from harvest. Namibia’s sealing regulation requires sealers to only kill nursing pups with a club -- no shooting (considered more humane) is allowed. And the Namibian quota exceeds all surviving pups after natural mortality is factored in.
This past sealing season Canada killed 70,000 seals, and as the Namibian government claims that sealers average 93% of their quota, this year's quota of 91,000 will make the Namibian seal cull the largest in the world. Namibia is the only country whose cull is 90% seal pups. It is the last country on Earth to club nursing baby seals to death. Its seal imports were banned in the United States as far back as 1972, due to the cruelty factor of killing a nursing baby seal pup in a breeding ground.
13.7: The Namibian government says that the Cape fur seals are not endangered. Is this correct?
Hugo: The preferred habitat of Cape fur seals is offshore islands. Historically there were no mainland colonies. Sealing exterminated all these island colonies, 98% of which has remained permanently extinct. Twenty-three island colonies were exterminated due to sealing. So, from this point, Cape fur seals are virtually extinct. The government themselves stated in 1990 that the species was close to extinction.
The fleeing, surviving seals fled to the mainland and this is where sealing now takes place. So whilst there has been some recovery from almost zero, none of the former colonies have repopulated.
The Namibian government claims a rating by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that rates Cape fur seals as not endangered (lower risk). This has no legal status. Conversely, the South African government listed Cape fur seals with the United Nations Convention in Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) in 1977 and the seals were given an Appendix II rating, which states trade must be carefully controlled to prevent its extinction. Namibia joined CITES in 1990. CITES is the only legally binding conservation rating, to which 173 countries have signed. The rating of the IUCN is meaningless, as it is based purely on one-sided, distorted data supplied by the Namibian government.
The other fact is that since 1994, this species has suffered several mass die-offs where all the pups starved to death and a third to half of the adults died as well. The last die-off admitted by the government was in 2006. In addition, I personally filmed Namibia’s largest seal colony, which had just be subjected to the largest quota on record. It was completely collapsed -- there was not a single seal left.
So whether you look at habitat, legal obligation, conservation rating, the quota that exceeds the living pups or the mass die-off from starvation due to overfishing and collapsed fisheries off the coast of Namibia, the Cape fur seals are most certainly endangered. They have been effectively reduced as a population, relegated to a tiny area measuring 500m by 800m for the entire species.
13.7: The Namibian government also says that the seals need to be culled because they eat too many fish -- 900 tons worth, they claim -- negatively impacting the Namibian fishing industry. What are your thoughts on this?
Hugo: Hogwash and more hogwash. Namibia was once one of the most productive fisheries in the world, with seals and fish sharing a unique natural balance that had existed for 5 million years. In the late 1960s commercial fisheries caught 1.5 million tons. Almost all of it went to fishmeal for pet food and livestock feed, which is an unnatural protein diet for these animals. The government did not then consider to cull pets or livestock -- so why now seals? The 900-ton claim is itself false, as seal diet consists of 50% non-commercial fish. So at the most, the government should only be concerned with 450 tons of fish.
It is the government or commercial fishing that should be culled, as the fish quota is now zero from mismanaged overfishing -- not seals. And pups do not eat solids or fish. So if this were true, why then does the cull involve a 90% pup quota and actually exempt all fish-eating seals of all age groups? The government has been culling seals even when it had no population data (the first population survey being conducted in 1972), nor any means of quantifying seal consumption. It just sounds like a good excuse, but it's not based on fact.
There is also not a single scientific paper supporting this. In fact, the only research by a leading professor funded by the government and the World Bank in 1994 on the hake/seal interaction showed that a seal cull would actually negatively effect the commercial catch of the hake. Seals feed on the predatory hake, which preys on the commercial hake.
In fact, South Africa believed the same, until it stopped in 1990, on the same species, and after 19 years, has in fact seen the seal population either remain stable or decline, as one would expect to occur in an overfished, collapsed environment. It has been conclusively proven that no intervention by mankind is needed to manage wild seal populations. Nature does so adequately through pups washing off islands and drowning, shark predation at sea and around colonies, jackal predation on land (although this is unnatural) and factors such as lack of fish, disease, heat and cold. These are all major -- and natural -- seal killers.
13.7: How many people are employed by Namibia’s seal hunt and how will they be affected if the seal hunt is ended for good?
Hugo: Ninety-seven workers are employed part-time between July and December. The two sealing concession holders have other business interests as well. If the government continues with its annual cull, the seal population will collapse -- as evidenced by the fact that sealers only reached 25% of their quota last year. When it collapses completely, the unskilled seal workers will have no way to earn money.
With the Seal Alert-SA buyout, as part of the offer, funds will be reinvested in Namibia in new industries whereby the sealers will be retrained and reemployed for at least the next ten years. Or, if the government accepts the Seal Alert-SA offer, I will retrain and redeploy the sealers as seal protectors and colony monitors year-round.
13.7: Why has Canada’s seal hunt received more worldwide press than the hunt in Namibia?
Hugo: The answer is simple. Africans are poor by Western standards, and therefore appealing to most who earn $1 a day can hardly fund multimillion dollar anti-seal hunt campaigns. It’s all about the money and very little to do with conservation, cruelty or protection of a species. It’s animal politics.
13.7: You mentioned that the South African diamond giant De Beers disapproves of the seal hunt. How does it affect them?
Hugo: De Beers should make the Cape fur seal its number one wildlife conservation priority, because it owned the farm on which South African sealers slaughtered well over 1.5 million seal pups between the 1970 and 1990. In a weird quirk, the De Beers restricted coastline initially offered a safe sanctuary for the seals fleeing the islands, but as their fleeing numbers swelled and more island habitats collapsed from sealing, these mainland sanctuaries actually became death camps for the seals. The same thing occurred in Namibia, although here De Beers only leases the land from the government, but is in a 50/50 partnership with the government in mining operations.
The De Beers Elizabeth mine is only about 10 kilometers from the culling colonies of Wolf/Atlas Bay. The mass die-offs reported in 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2002 and 2006 hit hardest in the south (the diamond-restricted area), and unfortunately De Beers offered no assistance to help or rescue any of these tens of thousands of dying seal babies on their beaches. This is dishonorable, as it is their policy to restrict access to this area. Therefore the obligation to offer help during those mass die-off years was theirs alone, but they prevented public assistance because of their restriction.
In a further quirk, the public is not allowed access to the restricted area -- a vast area. To be granted access the public is not allowed to take in cameras or cellphones. Yet, daily thugs of seal killers with clubs, knives and rifles can drive in and out of the most restricted area in Africa simply because the government gave them a permit to club seals. De Beers has never explained why they never voiced concern to prevent this access, citing security risks. After I questioned this sealer/De Beers relationship, De Beers did publicly issue a letter saying De Beers is opposed to culling, and it is believed that they did attempt to get Namibia to stop its cull. They did ask the EU to include Cape fur seals in the EU ban, as the anti-seal hunt movement had initially excluded Cape fur seals from the ban.
In my opinion, De Beers has a wonderful opportunity to do the right thing, and financially help Seal Alert-SA buy out the sealing industry, partly because their head office in South Africa, a country that has stopped seal culling, and partly because their major clients in United States since 1972 and the EU recently have banned the practice and imports due to the cruelty factor. It really is a case of “bloody seal diamonds.”
13.7: How did you first get interested in seal conservation and when did you start Seal Alert-SA?
Hugo: I am not a conservationist. I do not believe in the word -- it’s meaningless. I am an investigator and my client just happens to be seals -- not a human or corporation. I am investigating crimes against seals. My first seal client, which awakened me, was an entangled seal pup, ignored and left to suffer.
13.7: Can you describe this first client?
Hugo: She was a female seal pup about 10 months old I named Sweety. Fishing line had cut off both of her flippers to the bone. She couldn’t swim or hunt. Her entanglement, which would never biodegrade, was her tomb. She was dying from thirst and hunger in a watery grave. Freeing that seal, who was then too weak to swim away or have any energy to hunt taught me my first lesson: Rescuing seals is not rescue until the seal leaves and can survive on its own again in the wild. In fact, Sweety taught me a unique way, in fact, that the only successful way to save seals is to respect their freedom and work with them unconfined and free. Sweety in a sense hired me and opened my eyes and to their centuries of suffering. The plight of seals is actually in the unseen world that we all live in.
13.7: What exactly does Seal Alert-SA do to stop the seal hunt?
Hugo: The short answer is what doesn’t it do? If you can think of it, I have probably tried it and a whole lot more. Only time, lack of funding or physical limitation or prioritizing already existing saved lives prevents me moving quicker to end it.
13.7: How many people are actively working for Seal Alert-SA?
Hugo: Probably thousands around the globe. Seal Alert-SA is Francois Hugo is Cape fur seals is all of us. Seal Alert-SA has never had paid staff or had an office. My work is done in the wild, on the Internet and in meetings. We have no Web site, fundraising, PR or newsletter -- just like-minded individuals coming together to achieve a common goal. I am simply the physical saver of seals and the voice to mankind.
13.7: How important are donations to Seal Alert-SA?
Hugo: In reality not very important, as I fund my own rescues and do not exist because of donations. Many donation-based organizations need donations first to then do the work. I work the other way around. I just do the work or rescues and if and when a crossroad occurs, appeal then for that specific solution and get like-minded partners to help. This said, donations are very important as it means “many hands make light work.”
13.7: Do you work with other anti-sealing organizations?
Hugo: I work with and against anybody who is involved with seals, good or bad. My loyalty, cause and case is only to the seals. If people or organizations are working positively towards the seals, I work with them -- mostly in supplying all with data never before revealed. And in regard to those people or organizations against seals, I expose, question and attack.
13.7: It seems that seal hunting has received more and more worldwide condemnation recently -- from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's remarks to the EU ban on seal products to the United States Senate resolution denouncing the Canadian seal hunt. But do bans really work? Even though there is an international ban on commercial whaling, whales are still being slaughtered.
Hugo: Bans are effective because they prevent complete species annihilation. The greater the ban, the less annihilation. But equally it does little to address the wrongs of the past. For example, banning seal-clubbing on the mainland will not get seals back on their original habitat or evolutionary path.
13.7: Do you feel that within Namibia, there is a growing opposition to seal hunting?
Hugo: Yes, the very fact that the media in Namibia has been so supportive says a million words, or the fact that the prime minister agreed to meet me about the issue. It was probably the first time a prime minister anywhere in the world has sat done with someone directly campaigning against the government and had a chat. The buyout has seen many Namibians pledge thousands of Namibian dollars to buyout the sealers -- and that says everything.
13.7: You’ve said that tourists who come to see the seal colonies do not realize that the country also kills these seals hours before tourists arrive at the colony to view them. So Namibia is profiting from both sides of the issue, so to speak. Can the country transition fully towards seal conservation if the seal hunt is shut down, and will that revenue make up for the lost sealing revenue?
Hugo: That is right. Sealers enter colony at 5:00 AM, kill baby seals, load the dead pups in trucks and leave the colony by 9:00 AM. The government then opens the colony at 10:00 AM to paying tourists. There are warning signs that read, “Do not disturb the seal colony and help us to protect this unique seal colony.” Clearly the government is hiding its seal-culling activities. Not a single travel Web site mentions the seal cull. Blood on the beach or dead pups is blamed on jackals. The Namibian government earns over $9 million a year from 100,000 tourists paying to see seals in the wild. From the sealing industry it earns $50,000. Should seal culls stop and the government allows seals to return to the banned original islands, these islands would thrive, increasing tourists’ viewing pleasure, and could develop, for example, shark cage diving around seal colonies, which in South Africa generates over $200 million a year.
13.7: If Seal Alert-SA is able to buy out the Namibian sealing industry and you shut it down, what do you plan to do with the two seal processing plants and have you thought about keeping them up as a museum so that people can remember the horror of this bloody industry?
Hugo: Exactly, they would be turned into a museum, will all funds raised going to proper seal conservation and protection and research. The Namibian sealing industry in their offer have undertaken to make this a reality, if the deal is concluded, and would in fact contribute to the museum.
13.7: If this buyout works, could it provide a blueprint for future buyouts of similar industries and prove that conservation can be taken privately, outside the control of governments? If so, that’s a new kind of market-based conservation initiative.
Hugo: Hunting and mainstream conservationists have always had the “If it pays, it stays on Earth” approach. The only difference is that the words “hunt” and “kill” are replaced with “free” and “no-kill.” Private business has already taken the control away from the government to hunt. It’s time we turn this around to not hunt. We forget nature is all around us. Water, food and even conversation used to be free. Now we pay for calls, buy food and even bottled water. So why not pay for seals to be wild and free instead of dead and skinned? We franchise soda water like Coke. Why not franchise seals? Companies are taking out DNA patents on seeds and plants. Why not commercialize seals in a positive way?
I have always believed companies should list on stock exchanges offering returns in life, where investors invest in life and their own future. Had such companies done so, they would have owned the rights to seal viewing, shark cage diving and seal conservation and protection, generating millions in profits without any need to kill, offering a business and a final alternative to killing. It’s already there, profitable and proven, and carries little or no overhead or staff, forever growing. It’s just currently fragmented. I have never understood why these big anti-seal hunt groups have never invested in eco-tourism.
13.7: It seems that the Namibian government is happy to continue the seal hunt as long as it is lucrative. Is there any opposition within the government to end the hunt permanently?
Hugo: That you will have to ask them, for I have seen no evidence of any support to end it.
13.7: The majority of Canadians oppose the seal hunt in their country. What does the average Namibian think of the hunt in theirs?
Hugo: Namibia is the least populated country on Earth living in the oldest desert. Most didn’t even know about it until I told them.
13.7: If the Namibian seal hunt comes to end for good, what will you do?
Hugo: Work on getting seals back to their original habitat -- islands. And getting these areas unbanned.
13.7: What is your most memorable moment working with seals?
Hugo: Saving of the life of my first seal.
13.7: Where do you want to be in 10 years?
Hugo: Enjoying seal colonies living on islands, with the seas teaming with fish, watching the baby pups grow up safe, free and secure.
13.7: What is the most important lesson you have learned from seals?
Hugo: Love.
Editor's note: Namibia's seal hunt has begun. According to a July 16 email from Seal Alert-SA:
"Instead of an invasion by seal supporters pledging $14 to buy out the industry, the endangered Cape fur seals' breeding colonies were invaded by men with clubs earning $100 a month. A 5-ton truck off-loaded 200-300 slaughtered and clubbed to death seal pups at the Henties Bay Sealing factory, belonging to seal concession holder for Cape Cross, Albert Brink, who according to a media report in 1993 was a former nature conservation official for the Namibian government. Seal Alert-SA's appeal to the Humane Society International's 9 million members or International Fund for Animal Welfare's 3 million members or Sea Shepherd International or the World Society for the Protection of Animal's members to come on-board received either no comment or total refusal."
MORE INFORMATIONGET INVOLVED- Sign a Care 2 petition boycotting tourism in Namibia until the country bans their seal hunt
- Sign a Seal Alert-SA petition to un-ban seals from a UNESCO World Heritage Island in South Africa to provide them with a safe location to breed and live away from the clubbing in Namibia
RELATED POSTSimages: Francois Hugo, Seal Alert-SA
Japan's whaling industry calls him a terrorist. But for many illegally hunted whales, he is their last hope
