No obvious replacement for hakapiks: sealers

The leader of a Quebec-based sealing organization says there is no short-term alternative to using hakapiks to kill seals.

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn says he is prepared to study a ban on hakapiks— clubs with metal hooks— that Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams proposed last week.

Williams said the use of hakapiks provides ammunition toopponents of the hunt, and that they ought to be replaced by other tools, such as rifles.

Jean Claude Lapierre, president of the Magdalen Islands Sealers Association, agrees with Williams that the hakapik makes the industry look bad and should be banned.

But Lapierre said it's difficult to find another safe method of killing the seals because hunters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence work on the ice close together.

"Without a hakapik, it would be hard, I guess," he said. "If we could find something else to do it, it would be great."

Sealers who work off the northeast coast of Newfoundland overwhelmingly use rifles. Hakapiks, though, are commonly used in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in part because seals are more easily accessible on largeice floes.

Lapierre said his association is working on an alternative to the hakapik, but he told CBC News it would not be ready when the seal hunt re-opens next winter.

Mark Small, who fishes from Wild Cove on Newfoundland's northeast coast, said it's time to stop trying to make animal rights groups happy.

"It may not look pretty— and I agree— but I don't agree with giving everything we have up because of the protest movement," said Small.

Small said that while sealers in his area primarily use rifles, they also equip themselves with hakapiks. He said hakapiks are only used if a seal is still alive when sealers try to haul the animal onboard.

Small said he knows of no safer nor more humane way to dispatch an animal than a hakapik.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare, one of the groups opposing the hunt, says rifles are just as inhumane as clubs and hakapiks.