The seal whisperers
Scraping beneath the surface of animal activists, one will invariably unearth that Damascus moment that started them on a long, hard, lonely “road less travelled.” This is the case with two exceptional men, from opposite ends of the earth, caught up in a dearly paid-for personal commitment to the earth’s stewardship and united in their passion to save seals.
For Canadian Paul Watson, his revelation came in 1960 when, as a nine year old, he witnessed a seal hunt on Canada’s East coast. This traumatic experience shattered his childhood perception of the world as a friendly, peaceful and gentle place. In some of the nightmares that followed this traumatic experience, he dreamt he was a newborn seal pup ‘shivering defencelessly in the shadow of a huge hairy creature who brutally wielded a spiked club dripping with blood.’
In order to cope, he fantasised leading an army of seal defenders onto the ice floes. This dream sustained him until finally, at the age of twenty-five, he organised the first Greenpeace campaign to oppose the annual Canadian seal hunt. Taking a vow at the time that he would never accept a single dollar for himself from charitable donations for the seals, he has supported himself by teaching at colleges and lecturing at universities around the world on ecology and activism, in between sailing the seas in his Sea Shepherd vessel during campaigns to save the Canadian seal and, lately, also the Japanese whale which is hunted illegally.
When our own South African Seal Whisperer, Francois Hugo, encountered in a seal the expressionless, almost glazed look that takes possession of animals’ eyes when an advanced stage of suffering has been reached, his life path also changed forever. He and his wife Nelda had just acquired a 60ft - 60 ton Norwegian fishing vessel to convert into a live-abroad for their planned trip around the world in 1999. It was not to be. Their trip was delayed by their first encounter with a baby seal, Sweetie, in Hout Bay harbour where their vessel was berthed.
The terrible plight of Cape fur seals was brought to their attention a few weeks later when another seal arrived.
Francois first spotted him by virtue of the rolling flipper over flipper swim patterns, that had now become a distinctive sign of a very weak seal. Without any encouragement whatsoever, this pathetic remnant of a once robust and healthy seal hauled his broken and tired body aboard the raft tied alongside their boat and lay down to die.
Francois fed, nurtured and encouraged him to live and after many, many months he did. Once a skeleton of skin and bones, hence his name, Bones blossomed into a thoroughbred of a bull seal, shining pitch black in colour – eyes full of life once again. After a time during his rehabilitation he moved permanently off the raft and took up station alongside, constantly doing repeated head over hind flipper circles in the dirty polluted harbour water. Each time his head swung around, he would try and attract Francois’ attention and make eye to eye contact through the slime, oil and surface muck.
After some months, Bones simply vanished into the deep blue yonder. Francois’ second only rescued seal had disappeared for good. But the following August Bones was back, now distinguished from all the other hundreds of seals since rescued, by his repeated head over hind flipper turns, desperate to attract Francois’ attention once again. He would stay a few weeks, which involved making sure they “connected” at least twice a day before heading out into the harbour on his daily routine.
Francois has for various reasons been forced to re-locate to several different spots around the harbour, but Bones would somehow find him each mid-August.
This is so reminiscent of Zakes Mda’s haunting 2005 book The Whale Caller that surely the latter must have been modeled on the story of Francois and Bones.
With the annual Namibian seal cull, Francois has for years done battle with the Namibian government to put an end to the cull. The transparent excuse is always that the seals are “depleting fishing stocks,” a claim for which there is no shred of scientific evidence (“Namibia sealed fate”, Bolander July 6). But as is usual in such instances, one only has to follow the money, which in this case is the sale of seal genitals, considered an aphrodisiac in the East. And, of course, the limited market for the manufacture of sporran purses from the hides.
Hounded by the Namibian authorities, like Paul Watson who has also been relentlessly hounded by the Canadian authorities, Francois has sometimes sailed “close to the line,” but never actually crossing it, with a tenacity of purpose which can only be admired.
The inhumane annual seal cull is currently taking place, with lactating babies being clubbed to death while helplessly guarded by their mothers. Whereas the Canadian authorities at least allow observers from animal welfare organisations to be present, this is not allowed in Namibia where the cull is shrouded in secrecy.
However, communication cannot be stifled – it merely goes underground. And so, for the past month, Paul Watson’s Sea Shepherd Conservation Society based a group of crew members near Cape Cross, home of the largest Cape fur seal colony, on a covert mission to document and expose the annual slaughter of 91 000 Cape fur seals. Their mission, titled Operation Desert Seal, set out to expose this horrendous and senseless brutality to the rest of the world.
Through the use of cameras disguised as rocks, operated and downloaded by remote control, some good footage was obtained.
Upon the discovery of the beach stake out by off-shore naval patrol boats aided by thermal imaging, the activists – using night vision equipment and pursued by Namibian soldiers – retreated through the desert to their vehicles.
They drove without headlights until they reached the South African border. But not before Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba declared Sea Shepherd to be a “threat to national security.”
Meanwhile, the last word goes to Paul Watson: “If just one child with a yearning to protect nature is inspired to act in the future because of my story, then it will have been worth the effort. As a shepherd I have protected them, and I will fight for them against the forces of hell if need be and I will never abandon them.”
Written by Beatrice Wiltshire You are reading The seal whisperers articles
